China Faces a Conservation Challenge the EXPANDING ELEPHANT and MAMMOTH IVORY TRADE in BEIJING and SHANGHAI

China faces a conservation challenge THE EXPANDING ELEPHANT AND MAMMOTH IVORY TRADE IN BEIJING AND SHANGHAI

LUCY VIGNE AND ESMOND MARTIN

拯救大象

China faces a conservation challenge THE EXPANDING ELEPHANT AND MAMMOTH IVORY TRADE IN BEIJING AND SHANGHAI

LUCY VIGNE AND ESMOND MARTIN

PUBLISHED BY SAVE THE ELEPHANTS THE ASPINALL FOUNDATION PO Box 54667 Port Lympne Reserve Nairobi 00200, Kenya Lympne, Nr Hythe Kent CT21 4PD, UK

ISBN 978-9966-081-07-0

Front cover photograph: Ivory can only be legally sold in a licensed retail outlet as seen here while mammoth ivory can be sold legally in any outlet. Photo credit: Lucy Vigne

Title page photograph: Elephant tusks are sometimes intricately illustrated such as this one. Photo credit: Lucy Vigne

Back cover photograph: This Laughing Buddha made of mammoth ivory is a more unusual piece, compared with the commonly seen elephant ivory items for sale, as mammoth tusks are often damaged, thus demanding the carver to be more creative. Photo credit: Lucy Vigne

Published by: Save the Elephants, PO Box 54667, Nairobi 00200, Kenya, and The Aspinall Foundation, Port Lympne Reserve, Lympne, Nr Hythe, Kent CT21 4PD, UK, 2014. Contents

Executive summary...... 5 Introduction...... 11 Legal position of the ivory trade in China...... 13 Mammoth ivory in China...... 17 Methods of research...... 19 Results of fieldwork...... 21 Sources and wholesale prices of elephant and mammoth tusks...... 22 Beijing findings...... 25 Short history of Beijing’s ivory carving...... 25 Licensed ivory factories in Beijing...... 27 Retail outlets, items and prices for elephant and mammoth ivory in Beijing...... 31 Licensed ivory outlets...... 31 Unlicensed ivory outlets...... 32 Previous licensed ivory outlets...... 33 Mammoth ivory outlets...... 33 Elephant ivory items...... 34 Mammoth ivory items...... 35 Prices for elephant and mammoth ivory items...... 36 Substitutes...... 38 Buyers and vendors...... 39 Discussion regarding Beijing...... 43 Discrepancies observed in licensed outlets in Beijing...... 43 Ivory items being sold in unlicensed outlets in Beijing...... 48 Law enforcement challenges in Beijing...... 50 Shanghai findings...... 53 Short history of Shanghai’s ivory carving...... 53 Licensed ivory factories in Shanghai today...... 55 Retail outlets, items and prices for elephant and mammoth ivory in Shanghai...... 56 Licensed ivory outlets...... 57 Unlicensed ivory outlets...... 58 Previous licensed ivory outlets...... 59 Mammoth ivory outlets...... 60 Elephant ivory items...... 60 Mammoth ivory items...... 62 Prices for elephant and mammoth ivory items...... 63 Substitutes...... 65 Buyers and vendors...... 66 Discussion regarding Shanghai...... 69 Discrepancies observed in licensed outlets in Shanghai...... 69 Ivory items being sold in unlicensed outlets in Shanghai...... 70 Law enforcement challenges in Shanghai...... 72 General trends in the ivory trade in China...... 75 Trends in the ivory trade in Beijing from 2002 to 2014...... 77 Trends in the ivory trade in Shanghai from 2002 to 2014...... 78 Overall discussions and conclusions...... 79 Acknowledgements...... 81 References...... 82 Tables...... 83

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 3 4 Lucy Vigne n china faces a conservation challenge Pairs of plainpolished elephanttusks areincreasing inpopularity inChina. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Chinese ivory industry has been expanding tremendously, especially in the last five years. Illegal ivory imports are the largest in the world by weight and have been soaring; the wholesale price of raw tusks sold for carving has tripled since 2010; the number of official ivory carving factories has risen several-fold; the number of carvers is way up, the number of legal (licensed) retail outlets for elephant ivory has increased significantly as has the number of illegal (unlicensed) outlets selling elephant ivory; there has been a boom in customers for elephant ivory, both legal and illegal, both raw and worked, especially by collectors and investors in China; retail prices for ivory items have skyrocketed; and some businesspeople are optimistic about future economic benefits of trading in ivory. Law enforcement has not kept up with this huge expansion in the illegal ivory industry in China, where it is the largest in the world.

The mammoth ivory industry has also China recently. For instance in 2010 in expanded; this trade is legal. In China the southern China factory managers paid growth in tusk imports, wholesale prices, USD 750/kg for a 1–5-kilo tusk and USD carving, the number of retail outlets and the 900/kg for a 5-kilo tusk on the black number of mammoth ivory items for sale market. In early 2014 the wholesale has been significant. With the rising wealth price for a similar 1–5 kilo tusk increased in the country, more customers have been in price to an average of USD 2,100/kg buying mammoth ivory. Retail ivory prices in Beijing. This significant price rise has have skyrocketed, and traders are confident made raw tusks a profitable investment, in the future of the industry because of attracting more investors in raw tusks. the increase in demand. Although trade in The consumption of ivory in the legal mammoth ivory is legal, some traders are factories after the 1990 CITES trade ban using it as a cover for selling elephant ivory decreased so sharply that some of the in Beijing and Shanghai. factories essentially became almost bankrupt. The 2008 CITES-approved Following are key points: sale of about 62 tonnes of tusks from China is the largest importer of illegal southern Africa to China reignited the elephant tusks in the world, according ivory industry, which today has reached to seizure data and results of fieldwork its highest point since the CITES ban. carried out in key African and Asian Most raw elephant tusks smuggled into ivory markets. China from Africa do not pass through Most ivory items smuggled into China the formal factories in China. come from the large illegal worked ivory Nearly all worked ivory seen for retail markets in Africa, such as from Angola, sale in Beijing and Shanghai was Egypt, Nigeria and Sudan. recently made by Chinese carvers, with Wholesale prices for illegal raw ivory very few foreign-made or antique ivory tusks have increased considerably in items seen for sale.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 5 The number of official licensed (legal) In Shanghai, of the 119 outlets we visited, ivory factories in China has increased 13 of the 15 licensed retail outlets had from 9 in 2004 to 37 in 2013. 1,366 ivory items, nearly all the items on China is the main ivory manufacturing shelves with a compulsory ‘Collection centre in the world. card’ for identification (not always made In Beijing, for the licensing period of for the specific item, however), and we January 2013 to December 2014, there visited 106 unlicensed outlets with 806 were 10 licensed ivory carving factories. ivory items openly for sale. We were able to visit and collect For Beijing and Shanghai combined, information from 6 of them. 26.5% of the ivory items surveyed were In Beijing we surveyed 170 outlets illegal by the government’s definition, selling elephant and mammoth ivory being sold in non-licensed outlets without items, with 29 overlaps. Of these, 156 Collection cards, while 73.5% of the ivory were selling on open view 6,272 items items surveyed were supposedly legal named as elephant ivory, and 43 with as they had Collection cards, but some 3,747 items named as mammoth ivory of these cards were incorrect. on display for sale (with 26 licensed and The number of officially licensed (legal) 3 unlicensed outlets having both). retail ivory outlets in China increased In Beijing, of 156 outlets we counted from 31 in 2004 to 145 in 2013, and with elephant ivory, 35 of the 45 the number of unlicensed retail outlets licensed retail outlets had 5,286 ivory increased as well, strongly indicating items, nearly all the items on shelves a large expansion in the ivory trade in with a compulsory ‘Collection card’ for China. identification (not always made for Well over 90% of the elephant ivory the specific item, however), and 121 items sold in the retail outlets in China unlicensed outlets with 986 ivory items are now bought by mainland Chinese, openly for sale. unlike in 2002 when the main customers In Shanghai, for the licensing period of were foreigners. January 2013 to December 2014, there Most ivory is bought on the retail market were 3 licensed factories carving ivory. by Chinese collectors and by growing We visited and collected information numbers of investors reportedly from 2 of them. anticipating further restrictions on the In Shanghai we surveyed 133 outlets ivory trade as well as possible growing selling elephant and mammoth ivory scarcity in ivory due to future worldwide items with six overlaps. Of these, 119 ivory stockpile destructions. open retail outlets were selling on Mammoth tusk imports via Hong Kong, display 2,172 items named as elephant the main trade route into mainland ivory and 20 retail outlets displaying for China, have greatly expanded from less sale 3,547 items named as mammoth than an average of 9 tonnes a year from ivory (with 3 licensed and 3 unlicensed 2000 to 2003 to an average of 31 tonnes outlets selling both). a year from 2007 to 2013.

6 n china faces a conservation challenge Lucy Vigne Mammoth ivorytusks aresometimes seenforsale inlicensed elephantivory outlets,especially inBeijing. the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 7 Wholesale prices of mammoth ivory The Chinese government has increased tusks have increased greatly recently law enforcement efforts in recent years, due to the rise in demand in China. For but official inspections of retail outlets, example, in 2010 the wholesale price for which are found scattered across the the top grades A and B raw mammoth cities, are not frequent or rigorous ivory, averaged together, was USD 350/ enough to drastically eliminate these kg, while in 2014 comparable high-quality loopholes and illegal activities. tusks were USD 1,900/kg on average, Small items of elephant and mammoth bought by some factories in Beijing. ivory can often look the same. No quick Mainland Chinese buy at least 80% of test has been devised that can be the mammoth ivory items from the performed instantly on an item, making retail outlets in Beijing and Shanghai. inspections in outlets and checks at The numbers of ivory and mammoth Customs difficult. At present only DNA ivory items combined surveyed for and radio carbon dating can be done, retail sale have increased in Beijing from but these tests take time, are expensive, 3,196 in 2002 to 10,019 in 2014 and in and require a small sample of the Shanghai from 2,337 in 2002 to 5,719 material to test. in 2014, with more wealthy Chinese Mammoth ivory items are generally less buying these luxury items. expensive than elephant ivory items. A continuing problem with the ivory Elephant ivory is usually superior in industry of China is the illegal sector, quality and has been used traditionally which is thriving. for hundreds of years, so retail buyers Many small shops that do not have generally prefer to invest in elephant licences to sell elephant ivory items are ivory. doing so. Most of the large supplies of illegal The official compulsory Collection cards African ivory, both raw and worked, for each ivory item for sale in licensed are not sold through retail outlets but outlets are sometimes re-used. are given as gifts or sold informally to Some vendors in both licensed and friends and acquaintances. unlicensed outlets are selling illegal Nearly all the worked ivory nowadays elephant ivory under the guise of their stays within China, as is the law, but being mammoth ivory objects because mammoth ivory items carved in China they cannot sell the objects legally. are often exported legally to Hong Kong Mammoth ivory and elephant ivory and elsewhere. items are often sold beside one another Some elephant ivory items are being in the same outlet, making it easy to mix exported as mammoth ivory items as the two. Many people buy smaller items the latter are legal to export, and smaller based on the carving design and skill, items can be difficult to differentiate. unconcerned or unaware of the exact material; vendors sometimes just say an item is ‘ivory’ or whatever the customer wishes to hear.

8 n china faces a conservation challenge Esmond Martin In China, elephant ivory can only be carved legally in officially licensed factories and only be sold legally in officially licensed retail outlets with their signs on public view. Esmond Martin

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 9 Lucy Vigne

Mammoth ivory specialist shops often display a great variety of unique carvings. Lucy Vigne

10 n china faces a conservation challenge INTRODUCTION

China has been a centre for crafting ivory for thousands of years for the rich Chinese elite, but from the 19th century onwards, foreigners bought much of the worked ivory. By the mid-1980s the main buyers were Japanese, Europeans and Americans, in that order (Martin 1988). The industry collapsed, however, after the 1990 CITES ban that prohibited the international ivory trade. Around 2005, with the great expansion in wealth in China, demand in ivory exploded among the Chinese, who became by far the main buyers of worked ivory, for the first time since the 19th century. This promoted a rebirth in ivory carving. The domestic ivory trade continues to be legal, allowing Chinese to buy and sell ivory to one another, as long as the ivory remains within the country. The government provides from official stocks a limited supply of raw ivory annually to licensed ivory carving factories and allows a limited number of licensed retail outlets to sell worked ivory with official identification cards. There is, however, a parallel illegal ivory trade continuing in the country, fuelled by ivory from elephants, poached mainly from Africa but also from Asia.

The Chinese economy has been growing China has become the largest importer of significantly from 1991, sometimes by 9%a illegal tusks in the world (Milliken 2013). year. Economic reforms in China have been From 1989 through 2012, 116 tonnes massive, such as tolerating privately owned or 21% of the world’s total documented businesses, privatizing some state companies, seizures recorded by the Elephant re-opening stock markets, and encouraging Trade Information System (ETIS) involved foreign investment. Many people in the China. From 2008 through 2012, China’s cities, such as in Beijing and Shanghai, have proportion increased to 38%; for each of prospered and some are buying ivory items these years, the weight of ivory seized for for personal use, as an investment or for China was the greatest for any country prestige to show their status. (Milliken pers. comm. 19 August 2014). According to recent fieldwork in countries In 2002 the wholesale price to a carver for such as Angola, Egypt, Nigeria and Sudan a 2.5-kg African elephant tusk smuggled (all of which illegally sell large amounts of into China was USD 120–170/kg (Martin ivory openly and nearly all for the Chinese and Stiles 2003). In 2010 in southern China market), huge and growing quantities of an equivalent tusk cost USD 750/kg (Martin raw and worked ivory are being smuggled and Vigne 2011a). These rising prices have from Africa into China (Martin and Vigne been encouraging intermediaries in Africa 2011b, 2013, 2014a, 2014b; Trew 2014; and Asia to smuggle more ivory into China Mark Boyd, former resident in Khartoum, for the booming Chinese market. Elephant Sudan, pers. comm. 28 March 2014). There poaching in Africa increased from 2006 is also illegal trade in ivory with countries to 2011 with an estimate in 2011 of over bordering China, such as Lao PDR and 25,000 elephants illegally killed in Africa Myanmar, that threatens the dwindling (UNEP et al. 2013). numbers of Asian elephants as well (Vigne

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 11 2013a, 2013b; Nijman and Shepherd 2014). tundra, especially in north-east Russia, and China and Hong Kong are unusual with the most are sold to Chinese businesspeople greatest and growing trade in mammoth for the growing demand for ivories in China. ivory items in the world. The mammoth In this monograph, when we refer to the became extinct a few thousand years ago, word ‘ivory’ alone, it means elephant ivory but in the summer months, mammoth as different from mammoth ivory. tusks are recovered from the melting Lucy Vigne Chinese people enjoy being photographed with elephant statues.

12 n china faces a conservation challenge LEGAL POSITION OF THE IVORY TRADE IN CHINA 1981 China joined CITES

1990 CITES banned all international trade in ivory, but China received a brief All 50 tonnes sold exemption, allowing the were bought by the continued legal import of Japanese. China ivory from Africa until 1991. wished also to 1999 purchase tusks from Four southern African Africa in the future, countries that had earlier and to do so the successfully downlisted Chinese government their elephant populations introduced new, to Appendix II (which allows tougher legislation. the possibility of trade) were 2004 permitted to participate in the ﬁrst CITES-approved The State Forestry auctions. Administration (SFA) and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) brought in new regulations on the ivory trade. Every ivory factory and every retail outlet has to be accredited with the SFA and the SAIC. 2008 The second CITES-approved southern African auctions allowed China to buy 62 tonnes of elephant tusks (while Japan bought 38 tonnes).

In 2004, 9 ivory factories and 31 wholesalers and retailers were registered in China (IFAW 2006). Furthermore, information on tusks and worked ivory would be stored at a centralized database and monitored by the wildlife authorities (CITES 2012). Compulsory registration was required for every ivory item offered for sale. For objects less than 50 g a plastic card called the ‘Ivory Product Collection Certificate’ (TRAFFIC and China Arts and Crafts Association 2007) had to be available for each item in the shop for the customer. This card had to give information on the individual piece, including the weight of the product, the marking number and the name of the carver. For items over 50 g a photograph of the item was required on the card, which had to be displayed beside the item. The customer was recommended (it is not compulsory) to take the card, according to the official brochures available in the licensed outlets. These ID cards, referred to here as Collection cards, could not be legally used a second time.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 13 Lucy Vigne This elephant ivory Buddha is displayed for sale with its compulsory Collection card.

With these stricter measures in place, CITES Arts and Crafts Group Corporation, the voted that China could buy raw ivory at the Beijing Mammoth Art Company and the second (and most recent) CITES-approved Guangzhou Daxin Ivory Factory bought 62 auctions in southern Africa in 2008. With a tonnes of tusks from these second CITES- shortage of legal tusks in China as a result approved auctions in southern Africa of the international trade ban, the factories (Gao and Clark 2014). From 2002 to 2012 were keen to obtain more legal supplies as the Chinese government stated that their soon as possible. In 2008 the Beijing Ivory authorities had also put greater efforts Carving Factory (BICF), the China National to control their international borders and

14 n china faces a conservation challenge their domestic ivory industry (CITES 2012). for carving or retail sales of items made from For example, the Chinese government shut it. With the restrictions on elephant ivory down at least 10 officially designated ivory imports into China, some factories have factories and retail outlets in China that were turned to carving mammoth ivory, which involved in illegal ivory trade. During this they can obtain legally in unlimited amounts. period the government jailed hundreds of The trade is legal because the mammoth is illegal ivory dealers and sentenced 37 ivory extinct. Grade A mammoth ivory, called ‘ice’, smugglers to life imprisonment (CITES 2012). when carved into smallish items can easily More information on law enforcement over be viewed as elephant ivory as it looks so this period is in the CITES 2012 document. similar. Only on larger unpainted mammoth Regarding earlier information on law- ivory items can you clearly see in cross- enforcement, see Martin and Stiles 2003, and section that mammoth cross-hatchings O’Connell-Rodwell and Parry-Jones 2002. (Schreger lines) run through at a 90-degree angle rather than at a 115-degree angle as For mammoth ivory, there has never been do those in elephant ivory. Also, it is legal to any legislation to control or prohibit imports export mammoth ivory from China to all the into China nor have there been any controls major markets, except India. Lucy Vigne The base of this mammoth ivory item shows the Schreger lines.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 15 16 Lucy Vigne n china faces a conservation challenge Mammoth ivorycarvings aresometimes painted tohelphide theblemishes. MAMMOTH IVORY IN CHINA

Russia is by far the world’s largest exporter of mammoth tusks (Martin and Martin 2010). Minor exporting nations include Finland, Germany, United States and Canada. Over half the mammoth tusks on the world market are exported from Russia to Hong Kong. Recently, from 2007 to 2013, Hong Kong businesspeople imported annually on average 39,183 kilos of mammoth ivory, 93.5% from Russia (Hong Kong Government 2008–2014) (Table 1).

Hong Kong businesspeople are the main A small amount of mammoth tusks remains re-exporters of mammoth tusks to China. in Hong Kong to be sold as raw or polished Russian businesspeople find it easy to tusks or carved by the few remaining deal with Hong Kong Chinese due to their artisans in Hong Kong for local retail sale: of widespread use of the English language 274,283 kilos of mammoth tusks imported and their longer and greater experience into Hong Kong from all sources from 2007 in international commerce. Furthermore, to 2013, 216,873 kilos, or 79% were re- taxes put on mammoth ivory are minimal exported. The main recipient was mainland compared with those imposed in mainland China, which took 97% (211,203 kilos) of China. Hong Kong’s re-exports. Macau is next in Lucy Vigne A spiral polished mammoth tusk is seen here for sale in a shop.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 17 importance, taking 1.7% of the total (Hong Some of these crafted objects are sent back Kong Government 2008–2014) (Table 2). to Hong Kong, because labour is much cheaper in mainland China than in Hong In mainland China some mammoth tusks Kong (Martin and Martin 2010). Other items are sold within the country raw while others are exported directly to many countries. are polished and crafted into many items. Lucy Vigne Mammoth ivory specialist outlets often sell a huge array of items in China.

18 n china faces a conservation challenge METHODS OF RESEARCH Lucy Vigne Ivory items in licensed outlets are usually displayed behind glass.

We carried out fieldwork in Beijing from 9 to 28 May 2014 following fieldwork in Shanghai from 30 April to 8 May on the ivory and mammoth ivory trades in the two cities. Beijing was selected because more ivory factories and ivory retail outlets are officially registered than in any other city in China. Shanghai was chosen because it had many retail outlets selling ivory and had been studied, as had Beijing, by Dan Stiles in 2002 as a large ivory centre, allowing comparisons and trends with today (Martin and Stiles 2003). Neither of these large and important cities had been extensively surveyed for ivory since 2002.

The two of us, with a Chinese interpreter in licensed and unlicensed outlets and taking each city, visited the government-licensed photographs, again whenever possible. factories in Beijing and Shanghai and both We counted and identified both ivory and licensed and unlicensed retail outlets selling mammoth ivory items for sale. We did not ivory to learn about their businesses. We record the number of individual very small collected information from factories, where beads that were sometimes sold in packets, possible, on the number of carvers, the types not only as these beads had yet to be made of objects crafted, what prices were paid for into a finished item, but also because it can the tusks, the salaries of the carvers, and the be impossible to identify the type of ivory, managers’ viewpoints on the future of the with both mammoth and elephant ivory ivory and mammoth ivory business. We took beads nowadays popular. photographs when we could. We recorded prices of items, and we We visited almost all the areas where retail talked to vendors to find out what ivory shops would be selling ivory, looking at both and mammoth ivory objects sell best,

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 19 who their main buyers were, and how background research on past work and business has changed over the years. We publications regarding China’s ivory trade. did not see government officials in China, Our report carries our specific findings in nor non-government organizations, as Beijing and Shanghai, which are written our work was purely to collect data. Later, up in sections with some overlap on those however, one of us visited Geneva for the two major cities. The situation on the ivory 65th Standing Committee of CITES in July industry is fairly similar for both cities, but 2014 and met with the Chinese delegation we have maintained this overlap as readers about our recent fieldwork in order to may wish only to concentrate on learning follow up with its members later on various about the situation in one city or the other. issues. For comparison, we also carried out Lucy Vigne Lucy Vigne Beijing’s Temple of Heaven and Shanghai’s Oriental Pearl TV Tower are famous landmarks in the cities.

20 n china faces a conservation challenge RESULTS OF FIELDWORK

We surveyed all the licensed ivory outlets we could find at the addresses available in both cities, as well as other illegal outlets that had elephant ivory for sale with no licence to do so. However, the illegal outlets could not be a full count as many small outlets stay closed for much of the day in the large centres, selling antique-style items in both cities. So the survey represents ivory available for sale on a typical day. Of the outlets we surveyed, Beijing had three times more illegal than legal outlets. Shanghai had eight times more illegal than legal outlets. However, the largest numbers of ivory items are available in the legal outlets. In Beijing, 16% of the ivory items surveyed were in illegal outlets and 84% (with Collection cards) in legal outlets. In Shanghai, 37% of the ivory items surveyed were in illegal outlets and 63% (with Collection cards) in legal outlets. Very small beads, as already mentioned, were not included in this count, which would have hiked up the percentage of illegal items.

In the licensed outlets in both cities, cards for a specific item matched exactly, Collection cards for trinkets in table cabinets as is regulated. In both cities, but especially are allowed to be kept in bundles separate in Beijing, licensed outlets sometimes sold from the objects to save space, making elephant ivory as mammoth ivory In both checking them in these instances difficult, cities, but especially in Shanghai, a number especially if mammoth ivory trinkets were of so-called mammoth ivory outlets carried also present. Nearly all larger items on the a significant proportion of items that in shelves had Collection cards except for some reality were made of elephant ivory as it is supposedly not for sale; but loopholes were too difficult to get a licence to sell elephant allowing illegal elephant ivory to be filtered ivory. into the legal system. For example, not all

IVORY OUTLETS SURVEYED BEIJING SHANGHAI LEGAL OUTLETS ILLEGAL OUTLETS

3x more 8x more Illegal than legal outlets Illegal than legal outlets

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 21 Sources and wholesale prices of elephant and mammoth tusks Lucy Vigne These raw elephant tusks have been wrapped in plastic to protect them from the dry atmosphere before being carved.

The main sources of raw elephant ivory The government supplies some tusks for in China are official government stocks, the legal factories in controlled quantities; privately held legal stocks, the 62 tonnes the government limits the total amount bought from southern Africa in 2008 to about 5 tonnes a year for all 37 ivory that are controlled by the government, factories in China, making 135 kg available newly privately obtained legal supplies of per factory annually on average, a relatively pre-Convention stock with proper CITES small amount (Gao and Clark 2014; Vira et al. documentation from Europe, and raw tusks 2014). One Beijing factory owner informed that continue to be smuggled in from Africa us that he last bought 20 kg of tusks in 2013 and a little from Asia for privately held from the state-owned China National Arts illegal stockpiles. Attempting to quantify and Crafts Corporation; they were of poor the total amount of stock in tusks is almost quality and cost 10,000 yuan/kg (USD 1,613/ impossible due to the illegality of so many kg). Top-quality ivory at the time, he said, of the transactions. Based on the fact that would have cost him 13,500 yuan/kg (USD China is the main importer of illegal tusks 2,177/kg). Another ivory factory said that in in the world, and perhaps 25,000 elephants 2008 they paid for small tusks 8,000 yuan/ were killed in 2013 in Africa, the quantity of kg (USD 1,311/kg), but in early 2014 the illegally imported tusks is significant. factory bought small (1–4-kg) tusks on the

22 n china faces a conservation challenge black market, apparently for 12,500 yuan/ The three main sources for mammoth ivory kg (USD 2,049/kg), selling some wholesale are legal imports from Russia via Hong to other companies for 17,000 yuan/kg Kong, legal imports from Russia directly, and (USD 2,787/kg). The average black market tusks smuggled across the Russian–Chinese wholesale price for a 1–5-kg tusk of good border to avoid taxes. Mammoth ivory tusks quality paid by a factory or carver in Beijing imported from Hong Kong into China rose was 12,800 yuan/kg (USD 2,100/kg) in from 360 kilos in 1994, when the trade early 2014, but we could not obtain figures opened up due to the shortage of elephant from the government. Prices for legal ivory, and because it was an inexpensive government stockpile ivory are generally item to begin with, reaching 4,884 kilos in lower than black market prices. This partly 2000, and 31,271 kilos in 2008. Both the is because the ivory sold at the southern supply and the price continued to rise. One African auctions to Chinese buyers went factory told us that in early 2014 he bought cheaply at around USD 150/kg. We learned the best-quality mammoth tusks for 15,000 from factory staff that illegal raw ivory from yuan/kg (USD 2,541/kg) and sold some poached elephants from Africa often comes wholesale for 17,000 yuan/kg (USD 2,787/ via Fujian Province onto the Beijing black kg). Today, according to the factories, small, market. Guandong Province is another poor-quality mammoth tusk pieces can be well-known smuggling centre for raw and as cheap as USD 50/kg, as they entail a great worked ivory, often reaching Beijing and deal of waste, while large, high-quality ones Shanghai via networks of trusted traders, range from USD 1,639 to USD 3,229 a kilo as also recently documented by other wholesale. The 5–10-kg raw mammoth tusks researchers (EIA 2014). sell wholesale generally for between USD 1,300 and USD 2,500 a kilo. Lucy Vigne These elephant statues were outside a McDonald’s fast food restaurant in Shanghai.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 23 Esmond Martin

In the mid-1980s a large number of ivory carvers were working in government-owned factories in China. Esmond Martin

24 n china faces a conservation challenge Beijing findings Short history of Beijing’s ivory carving

In 1680 the Chinese emperor Kangxi set up consuming about 15 tonnes of tusks a year an ivory factory in the palace compound in and employing 421 to 550 ivory carvers: 5 Beijing. From 1731 to 1790 there were 21 master carvers, 16 carving technicians, 200 ivory carvers in the Imperial Household skilled carvers and 200 ordinary carvers, Department, making Beijing a major ivory plus others employed at different times. carving centre in China, a position it still There were, however, no apprentices at holds today (St Aubyn 1987). After the 14 December 1985 (Liu Jie Ding, General People’s Republic of China was established Manager, BICF, pers. comm.) (Table 3). in 1949 the government supported the ivory business by setting up the BICF in 1958. In 1987, the government was reluctant During the Cultural Revolution (1966 to 1976) to allocate foreign exchange to import the factory was open but underutilized. The a significant quantity of tusks because artisans were not allowed to carve female the price was increasing (Martin and figures nor historical individuals because Stiles 2003). The factory was paying the the government authorities thought that equivalent of USD 190/kg for top-quality they were ‘feudal’. Instead the carvers made tusks and USD 60–80/kg for 3-kg tusks. revolutionary items, such as Red Guards, Therefore, they bought less ivory and the soldiers and peasants. By 1985 the artisans more skilled carvers were transferred to had gone back to producing their traditional carving valuable stone such as jade, which items of human figures (especially women), is more difficult to carve than ivory, while flowers, birds and animals. At this time, the the ordinary 200 carvers stayed to work BICF was the largest ivory factory in China, on the smaller supply of ivory allocated Esmond Martin These ivory items were bought by foreigners in the mid-1980s.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 25 Esmond Martin These typical expensive ivory and jade elaborate carvings made in the 1980s are still produced today.

to them. In early 1987 the average master currency required to import the tusks. carver was earning a basic salary of 220 Almost all the ivory objects were exported, yuan (USD 60) a month plus a ‘performance’ either directly, especially to Hong Kong, or wage of 130 yuan, totalling 350 yuan (USD bought by foreigners in shops in China to 95) a month. The maximum take-home pay take home, especially to Japan, Western had been 400 yuan (USD 109) a month. The Europe and America. At this time few remaining ordinary carvers received a basic Chinese could afford to buy ivory items. salary of 80 yuan (USD 22) a month plus a ‘performance’ wage of 50 yuan a month, There continued to be a sharp increase in totalling 130 yuan or USD 35 a month. The the price of tusks causing a further decline carvers preferred soft tusks (from savanna in the number of carvers, until by 1990, with elephants) rather than hard ivory (from the international CITES ivory ban in place, forest elephants) because they said it was the BICF had only a few carvers left. East easier to carve. Asians, the main buyers, and occasionally Westerners were taking ivory out of the At this time (1987), the factory had a simple country illegally. A few Chinese were buying formula for pricing the items they sold name seals and chopsticks (Martin and (excluding large skilfully carved elaborate Stiles 2003). In early 2002 there were no items): the cost of raw material + 150% carvers in the BICF at all (EIA 2003). Then, for labour. The factory sold its leftover as the Chinese became wealthier, carvers ivory powder for 10 yuan (USD 2.72) per started working once more on ivory at the kg. They sold off 300–400 kg in 1986 and BICF and in Beijing and China generally, again in 1987. The worked ivory was meant with the Chinese gradually replacing nearly for export in order to recoup the foreign all the past foreign buyers.

26 n china faces a conservation challenge Licensed ivory factories in Beijing

There were 10 officially licensed ivory we collected some information from their factories in Beijing for the January 2013 employees, and one other (2) was most to December 2014 period, up from 9 in helpful in providing us with information 2012/13. China as a whole has 37 licensed about ivory production. We did not hear ivory factories with Beijing having the most about the location of any unlicensed ivory of any city in the country. We obtained factories or workshops in Beijing. addresses from the SFA’s licensed factory website and visited all 10 factory locations Five of the factories (our numbers for them given. They were dispersed across Beijing being 1, 2, 4, 5, 10) had licensed retail outlets and in the outskirts. After an extensive selling their worked ivory in Beijing, totalling search, we found 6 factories. Four of the 22 shops that we visited. Generally these locations, numbered here in the order were owned by the factory proprietors, we visited them, had no signs of an ivory relations or friends. Two other factories (3, factory (1, 5, 6, 9) at the addresses given. 8) said they carved and sold ivory only on Two that we visited (4, 10) allowed us to see commission, one using both elephant and their ivory carvers who were all working mammoth tusks, the latter sometimes for on elephant ivory, mostly on large items. A customers abroad; the other dealt in both third (3) showed us an ivory cutting machine raw and worked ivory, but only with trusted with ivory powder around it, but no carvers and familiar customers, although they did were working that day due lack of ivory. say they could sell us 20 kg of raw ivory if Two factories (7, 8) were uncooperative as we wished. Two more factories (6, 9) had they were particularly suspicious of us, but two licensed outlets but no ivory to see, and Esmond Martin Ivory carvers work intensely in this licensed factory in Beijing.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 27 Esmond Martin This carver in a licensed factory in Beijing has just completed an ivory Chinese cabbage.

the final factory (7) no longer had a licensed factories are now recovering, employing retail outlet in the current list. Thus not all more young than older carvers today. the factories’ ivory carvings are channelled One factory started with mammoth ivory through their own licensed retail outlets. in the 1980s but gradually replaced it with elephant ivory, being more popular and Much of the information we collected was easier to carve. Another factory could get provided to us by the owners or employees officially only 20 kilos of ivory a year for its of four of the factories, with some 20–30 carvers, so it was also using mammoth information also from others. We were told ivory. (We were told that it was best to try that other ivory factories without official to join other buyers to purchase mammoth licences make ivory items that compete with ivory in bulk directly from Russia to get the the licensed carvers, but that business was best price.) Another factory said it could in general nevertheless all right, especially get only 300 kilos of elephant tusks from in elephant ivory, which was more popular the government in 2009 for its 10 carvers than mammoth ivory. but would have liked to have obtained 500 kilos from the government. Consumption of Some of these ivory factories had been in tusks by one large factory we visited with 40 the business for over 30 years, suffering carvers, we were told, is about 500 kilos of seriously after the CITES trade ban when ivory a year. Another factory with 30 carvers they had to retire their old carvers, but the uses several hundred kilos of ivory a year.

28 n china faces a conservation challenge We obtained the numbers of carvers them; Chinese customers increasingly working at six of the factories (8, 10, 10, demand full plain tusks with no blemishes. A 30, 30, 40), totalling 128; this is a minimum large intricately carved tusk takes one carver figure. Not all the factories had their carvers two years to complete, and the common 30- working full time on ivory due to a shortage cm Gwan Yin figure requires two to three of tusks available. Those carvers we saw months of labour. Master carvers like to were all busy making carved tusks, Gwan produce unique items and can gain annual Yin (Chinese goddess of mercy) figures, awards for their work. animals, Gwan Yin oblong pendants, Chinese cabbage and aubergine carvings. The older experienced carvers train the The carvers, mostly young men and some new workers to carve, watching over their young women, were working with electric work and supervising the fine details. drills and finishing the final details with One factory owner said his carvers were hand tools, concentrating on one item type presently training students to carve ivories each. We were told that the many valuable at a university in Beijing as he could not get stone carvers (especially on jade) whose enough ivory from the government, which products are sold in outlets in the antique provides his factory with only a little at a and jade centres can also carve ivory if time. Several owners said business was more carvers are required, but they receive stable or all right. One big factory was being higher salaries for working on jade. renovated with 75% of their carvers working in another building until renovations were When factories obtain large, top-quality finished, indicating that this factory was elephant tusks, the carvers often just polish doing well. Esmond Martin The Chinese cabbage is a traditional carving still produced in ivory today.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 29 A large factory said they rarely made selling them carved stones, wines and large jewellery as it is a waste of material and stuffed animals, for example. The factories requires little artistic merit. Another said sometimes provide catalogues showing although large items make more profit, the these items, including their standard ivory mass-produced trinkets also need to be carvings that they produce in the same style made in elephant and mammoth ivory to over and over again. attract buyers as most customers can afford these, and in time, as trust is gained, the The leftover ivory powder can be sold to customer will come back for more expensive pharmacists for medicines, to remove items. It is important for the vendors to gain teeth stains and toughen the gums, and as the trust of the rich by providing them with garden fertilizer. One factory sweeps it up good items. These businesspeople may to keep as evidence to show the SFA how be involved not only in producing ivory much ivory their carvers have used. items for their rich clientele but also in Esmond Martin A carver in a licensed Beijing factory is making an ivory Gwan Yin figure.

30 n china faces a conservation challenge Retail outlets, items and prices for elephant and mammoth ivory in Beijing

During our May survey, we covered all cross-hatching of elephant—of which 2,258 the main shopping areas in Beijing where were in 26 of the licensed outlets mentioned ivory was for sale, and we counted a total above, 171 objects were in three unlicensed of 6,272 ivory items in 156 open outlets, outlets that also sold elephant ivory, and both licensed and unlicensed (Table 4). Of 1,318 were in 14 outlets selling mammoth these, 5,286 objects were in 35 out of the ivory and supposedly no elephant ivory. currently 45 licensed outlets in Beijing that Thus of the total 156 outlets that we could were found at the addresses available on survey selling elephant ivory items, 29 were the website, and 986 in 121 smaller non- selling mammoth ivory items as well (in 26 licensed outlets. We also counted 3,747 licensed and 3 unlicensed outlets) and 14 items in 43 outlets that were named as more were selling mammoth ivory items mammoth ivory (Table 4)—some had the alone. licensed ivory outlets Collection cards available, as these items During our ivory survey in Beijing, we visited were supposedly already sold or were not mainly outlets in centres selling antiques, for sale. Twenty-six of the licensed shops works of art, jewellery, jade, souvenirs also displayed for sale 2,258 so-named and gifts, as well as several old and new mammoth ivory items. shopping malls with licensed ivory outlets and some located in shops on the street. We counted elephant and mammoth ivory pieces on display for retail sale in only the open outlets, representing what is available on a typical working day. Virtually all were recently carved in China. Of the 156 ivory outlets we surveyed, 35 were licensed with an average of 151 items per outlet. Ten other currently licensed outlets were not available to see as they were either not at the location given or remained closed. The elephant ivory items had the official Collection cards and the shops had their framed licences on the walls, permitting them to sell ‘ivory’ from January 2013 to December 2014. Of these licensed outlets, 32 specialized in ivory and 3 sold mainly general antiques or reproductions. These licensed outlets had 5,286 elephant ivory items for sale, and only a scattering did not have the compulsory Lucy Vigne A well-known older tourist antique centre, the Panjiyuan Centre (or Beijing Antique City) is filled with many small retail outlets, including licensed ones, mammoth ivory ones and unlicensed ones.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 31 unlicensed ivory outlets window of some of these closed outlets. We surveyed 121 open outlets without licences that displayed, among a variety of The 121 open unlicensed outlets displaying other gifts and ornaments, some elephant 986 ivory items had no fake licences on ivory items for sale. Most were in large their walls nor fake Collection cards (nor buildings called antique or jewellery centres had we found them in southern China in or ‘cities’ (for example Beijing Antique City 2011, with Collection cards used only in the A and B, Cheng Tian Antique City, Liangma licensed outlets). They had 8.1 items per International Jewellery and Antique City, outlet on average (compared with 151 items Tianbaorunde Antiques Exhibition Centre, on average for the 35 licensed ones) that Tianya Antiques City). These centres also were usually small, such as jewellery. Some had licensed outlets that we surveyed. outlets could have had mammoth ivory, These centres generally consist of rows of as often distinguishing small items from small outlets selling carvings such as jade, elephant ivory is difficult. A few were old stone and wood, as well as antiques, curios ivory objects such as snuff bottles, but many and jewellery. They are usually several- were faked to look old. Nearly all, as noted storey buildings with many private outlets. by their style, were recently carved in China. In some, up to a quarter may stay closed for Only three of these small unlicensed outlets much of the day so we could not check these, selling elephant ivory items also had worked although we did see ivory items through the mammoth ivory, numbering 171 items. Lucy Vigne This ivory aubergine plant was for sale in an unlicensed outlet in Beijing.

32 n china faces a conservation challenge previous licensed ivory outlets religious items. (In the Buddhist shops, Out of 43 outlets that were on the previous only mammoth, not elephant, ivory items official licensed list from January 2011 to were seen for sale—such as pendants and December 2012, 28 were on the current Chinese horoscope beaded bracelets— licence list in the same locations. We also as Buddhists in China told us they do not visited 13 outlets that no longer had licences believe in selling items from killed animals.) under those company names. Three still Three were gift and miscellaneous outlets offered 6 small elephant ivory items, one also in arts and antique centres, and one was a displaying for sale 28 mammoth ivory items. hotel souvenir shop. The other outlets had either moved or were gone, renamed or replaced. Most outlets had There were also 26 licensed elephant received new licence numbers in the updated ivory outlets selling 2,258 mammoth ivory list, adding to difficulties in tracing those that objects, and 3 non-licensed outlets selling had changed name or location. elephant ivory that also sold 171 mammoth items. Therefore, the total number of mammoth ivory outlets mammoth ivory items seen for retail sale There were 14 shops selling a total of 1,318 in 43 outlets in Beijing was 3,747 pieces. In mammoth ivory items and no elephant Beijing in 2002, not a single mammoth ivory ivory. We could not do a count in 2 large item was seen for sale (Martin and Stiles outlets we saw that specialized in mammoth 2003). Despite Beijing being considered by ivory as they remained closed. Of these some to have an unfortunately dry climate 14 shops, 6 specialized in mammoth ivory for mammoth ivory, encouraging cracking, in the main arts and antique centres, and the amount of mammoth ivory for sale has 4 were Buddhist shops selling general expanded greatly. Lucy Vigne Some mammoth ivory trinkets such as these can look very similar to elephant ivory.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 33 elephant ivory items in the table cabinets. This proportion of While the number of unlicensed outlets large items for sale is very high compared selling worked ivory was far greater than with outlets in other countries worldwide. the number of licensed shops, the number and sizes of items of worked elephant and Nearly all the items in the unlicensed outlets mammoth ivory were generally far greater seen on display for sale weighed less than in the licensed shops than in the smaller 50 g, such as jewellery and second-hand unlicensed outlets. Pendants were 31% name seals. White ivory is preferred by of the items counted (Table 5). The large customers, with the whitest ‘snow’ ivory, licensed elephant ivory specialist outlets being closer to the top of the tusk, often had whole tusks, figures, paintbrush used for popular items such as pendants. holders, vegetable and landscape carvings The unlicensed outlets in the newest on wall shelves, while the much smaller centres had just a few small items, such as items, such as jewellery, name seals and figurines, sometimes in a plush showroom chopsticks were under glass in table tops. with an equally smart back office. Jade is the Several elephant tusks, usually on wooden most common material seen for sale in such stands, were seen in most of the licensed centres, but a sprinkling of elephant ivory shops, being sold in pairs or singly, carved items, including, apparently Asian elephant and uncarved, or with calligraphy or delicate ivory antiques, can occasionally be found. paintings, and most had the savanna Hardly a single recognizably African ivory elephant shape. Of a random sample of 14 figure was seen for sale in Beijing. Vendors licensed elephant ivory outlets, 28% were sometimes said their items were antiques, large items counted on the shelves and 72% which usually was not the case. were small items of less than 50 g counted Lucy Vigne Bangles and bracelets are particularly popular in licensed outlets. The ones here are priced and displayed with their Collection cards.

34 n china faces a conservation challenge mammoth ivory items In the table cabinets, oblong pendants In the six surveyed mammoth ivory with Buddhist engravings were the most specialist shops (as for the licensed common items, 38%, so that the large variety elephant ivory specialist shops) larger items of designs can be displayed (Table 6). These were arranged in wall cabinets or shelves and other small items often looked identical and smaller objects in table-top cabinets. to elephant ivory as they are produced Most larger carvings were religious figures from Grade A ‘ice’ mammoth ivory. The of the Buddha and of a variety of animals best whole unblemished mammoth tusks (popular also with foreigners). Other items, are left uncarved and are simply polished; such as composites (landscape scenes as for elephant tusks, a growing number consisting of many small pieces of ivory of buyers consider such tusks the most stuck together in an intricate design) and valuable and prestigious items. They are even magic balls that are traditionally made recognizable from elephant tusks by their of elephant ivory were also for sale made of spiral twist and brownish outer layer; they mammoth ivory. In shops selling mammoth are often much larger than elephant tusks ivory, among items that could be examined and are displayed in wooden stands on the were a few so-called mammoth carvings ground. Big objects seen for sale made up that had the cross-hatchings of elephant 37% in number, and small items counted ivory. These cross-hatchings are sometimes that were all in table-top cabinets were 63% hard to determine on the base of a figure on average per outlet. when it has been painted—painting has become increasingly popular with certain Mammoth ivory items do not need any items, especially to cover any blemishes. ID cards by law, and it was only in the Lucy Vigne These carved mammoth tusks were selling for 5,800,000 yuan (USD 950,000) in a Beijing mammoth ivory specialist shop.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 35 specialist shops that generally all items items for sale in less wealthy areas were had authenticity cards from the factory to less expensive. In general, the price was prove the material was mammoth ivory, related to whether an item was uniquely sometimes with a picture of the item in carved by a master, made en masse, or the better shops. Some mammoth ivory related to the size and weight of the item. outlets had optional framed certificates of Antique carvings of course would be more their membership in the Mammoth Ivory expensive, but few of these are left as the Association on their walls, but this is again Cultural Revolution destroyed so much art. voluntary. Joining the association is not an The largest items, such as carved tusks, official requirement, and vendors said the which take one master carver three years association lacks adequate government to produce, fetched the highest prices. support. Other outlets sometimes had one Polished tusks are the most valuable on or two of the usually green, pictureless average as, despite no labour or expertise mammoth ID cards on a shelf near some in carving being required, they must have items, suggesting they were mammoth no imperfections. The most expensive such ivory, but these few cards were not usually item we saw was a 162-cm-long polished available to take away from the shop. Other tusk for 1,300,000 yuan (USD 213,115) and outlets only had the words ‘Mamou‘ or the least expensive was a thin plain ring for sometimes ‘Chong mao sha’ (long-haired 500 yuan (USD 82) (Table 7). elephant) or the equivalent in Chinese writing near the items or on the price tags; Mammoth ivory carvings for items similar the words were often small or to one side to elephant ivory were generally less and hard to see. expensive, although for trinkets, such as pendants, vendors mostly said the price prices for elephant and depended on style and technique, not mammoth ivory items material. With mammoth ivory pendants Retail prices for ivory items in non-licensed being sold beside elephant ivory pendants, outlets were generally lower than in licensed many vendors do not bother to distinguish outlets, especially pendants, bangles and the two, unless pressed to do so, selling name seals (which make up 40% of the them all simply as ivory, the only difference ivory items for sale in Beijing). Prices varied being the type of ID cards. Carved tusk according to the location of the shop, with sections with animals and people of 30—50 certain shopping malls in areas where richer cm cost USD 6,475 on average (Table 8). officials live having outlets selling more The most expensive mammoth ivory item expensive ivory objects. Officials can afford seen was a 257-cm elaborately carved tusk to pay a lot more on company expense priced at 9,600,000 yuan (USD 1,573,770) for items that are used as ‘gifts’, although and cheapest offered for sale was a ring for this activity is being lessened now in China. 20 yuan (USD 3). Recently the government has implemented a major crackdown on corruption, which included bribing government officials with ivory items (Global Times 2014). Ivory

36 n china faces a conservation challenge Lucy Vigne Elephant ivory chopsticks are often sold as two pairs for good luck. These are displayed with a new Collection card and clearly priced at the equivalent of USD 2,754. Lucy Vigne This mammoth tusk piece that shows the brown outer layer beneath was selling for the equivalent of USD 6,393. the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 37 Substitutes Few other ivories apart from elephant heat and smoke to look like real old African and mammoth were for sale. Sometimes bangles. The same method is occasionally hippo, walrus and narwhal ivory items were used to age real ivory to look antique. displayed, as well as bone carvings of crabs and lobsters sometimes in mammoth ivory White-beaded necklaces and bracelets of specialty shops. One outlet sold several a variety of materials appearing similar to painted Chinese cabbages made of bone—a ivory are common, as white is an esteemed copy of an ivory item made long ago for the colour in China. White coral and white Forbidden City and still often seen for sale jade are more expensive than ivory, and made of ivory. More frequently seen in small there are also white beads made from outlets is a plastic look-alike material with giant clams (Tridacna), popular at Buddhist wavy lines through it that some vendors say temple shops as one of the seven precious is elephant or mammoth ivory or elephant materials in Buddhism, supposedly being bone and may charge ivory prices for it. good for health, ageing and insomnia. The Chinese have increased their skills in Sometimes nuts from certain palm trees the last five years at faking this plastic to (Phytelephas), which are indigenous to South look like ivory. Some outlets sell darkened America and resemble ivory when carved, and cracked plastic pendants and belt are made into items such as necklaces ornaments that have been heated to look which are available at Buddhist shops and old, sometimes with calligraphy added, sometimes elsewhere. and large plastic bangles also faked with Lucy Vigne This lobster carving was made from bone.

38 n china faces a conservation challenge Lucy Vigne A young customer bought an ivory bangle in a less expensive licensed outlet in Beijing for 5,000 yuan (USD 819) and took the Collection card with her.

Buyers and vendors

According to vendors, well over 90% of escalators in the malls or shopping centres, the buyers of elephant ivory items are and show some of their best items in the mainland Chinese citizens. At least 80% windows to attract buyers, but foreigners of the buyers of mammoth ivory are also do not normally visit them. These outlets mainland Chinese but there are customers keep a fairly low profile with no pictures from Britain, Canada, India, Russia and of elephants that could attract undue Thailand as well, according to ivory dealers. attention. One licensed elephant ivory Unlike in Martin and Stiles’s survey (2003), outlet that did have large elephant pictures nowadays most tourist places popular on the outside wall of the shop changed with foreigners do not display elephant them to mammoth pictures during our ivory, nor mammoth ivory, due to lack of visit, aware of some current disapproval in foreign demand. In 2002, the main buyers the trade in elephant ivory. of elephant ivory were East Asians and Westerners, while local Chinese generally Young Chinese customers who are 20 to 30 bought only name seals and chopsticks. years old, often couples, generally choose less expensive ivory items such as jewellery Ivory shops are often located in conspicuous and trinkets, and as they become wealthy positions near building entrances or in their 40s to 50s they choose figures and

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 39 whole tusks for gifts and investment. The Fat ivory. More businesspeople believe that Buddha is less often seen for sale as it has ivory may continue to rise in price and been out of fashion for the last three years are buying plain polished tusks from the compared with Gwan Yin figures, which retail outlets as an investment. We learned were frequently seen. Demand for whole some are also buying raw tusks, before tusks has increased, according to vendors. they reach the factories, for speculation, Carved tusks are preferred by newly rich usually on the black market as verified by businesspeople and plain polished tusks, others (‘t Sas-Rolfes et al. 2014). Mammoth sometimes in pairs; those with only drawings ivory is not well marketed and the idea of and calligraphy on them are nowadays it being ‘fossilized’ is not attractive to many preferred by the more educated rich customers. Yet the majority of customers businesspeople, vendors said. In 2002 there just want small ivory items, and as long as were no plain polished tusks seen for sale it looks like ivory, whether it is elephant in Beijing (Martin and Stiles 2003), neither or mammoth is not a concern, as they are were there any large magic balls that were more interested in the technique and style available in several outlets during this 2014 of carving than in the material. survey, due to the general rise in Chinese demand for ivory items. In the licensed shops especially, vendors were sometimes uncooperative towards Some vendors were inexperienced and us: twice the door was closed on us, several young, unable to tell the difference vendors were very guarded, and we saw between the ivories, especially in the some vendors warn other vendors about unlicensed outlets. Older vendors or those us. One licensed outlet pretended all the who were the shop owners were more items for sale were bone, despite having knowledgeable about ivory and more willing elephant ivory Collection cards. This lack of to give discounts. When pressed, nearly all transparency and secretiveness suggested vendors agreed that their Chinese buyers these outlets had something to hide, as was preferred elephant ivory to mammoth ivory sometimes the case. Of the 34 open licensed and sometimes offered mammoth ivory for retail outlets surveyed, 20 were seen with 10–20% less for similar items, especially a few ivory items not exactly matching the in licensed outlets where buyers like to pictures on their Collection cards or with see the Collection cards with elephant some elephant ivory objects being sold as ivory items. Some vendors said that the mammoth ivory, which does not require an ID restrictions make elephant ivory difficult to card. Customers do not seem to notice these obtain, thus appearing more attractive and discrepancies and usually do not bother to more sought after than mammoth ivory, as take the card with their purchased elephant well as being a traditional substance. Most ivory item. Carvers usually reproduce the vendors, who believe that as the supply same item again and again so Collection of elephant ivory items may be getting cards can be re-used without difficulty with scarcer due to the restrictions on tusks the same photo matching close enough with within China and abroad, wanted to buy other carvings of the item. elephant ivory as opposed to mammoth

40 n china faces a conservation challenge Lucy Vigne Customers oftendo not taketheCollection card whenbuying anivoryitem. the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 41 We saw about six customers buying more in demand than mammoth ivory. elephant ivory items in Beijing during our three-week survey and saw no mammoth We asked a cross-section of Chinese about ivory items being sold. Yet vendors were the ivory trade and most had little idea of generally confident about their ivory sales the mammoth, sometimes having only seen as more young carvers are learning from the animal in the film Ice Age and being the masters, due to rising demand (they unaware that mammoth ivory was available cite increased prices and the supply of tusks for sale in China. Similarly, people randomly increasing), and are producing better-quality asked did not own ivory or know anyone items; with more production there is greater collecting ivory, nor had most heard or seen competition and so the artistry is improving. any messages to stop the ivory trade to save Chinese art collectors are increasing in Africa’s elephants. We saw only one very number, and ivory is considered a beautiful large poster at the Wanfujing metro station art form and part of Chinese culture. The to this effect, in a spacious and busy hallway. top tier of art collectors, both individuals Most Chinese are not interested in ivory and and organizations, want only legal ivory so know very little about it as ivory is not seen the demand for it is significant, with buyers generally for sale in the modern shopping turning to trusted sources who may sell them centres and is not popular with the majority other collectors’ items also, such as carved of Chinese, who want to spend their money stones, stuffed trophy animals for display on modern items, such as cars and smart and wine. Ivory dealers and vendors nearly phones. all agreed that elephant ivory remained Lucy Vigne This old-fashioned Friendship Store in Beijing, once a major outlet, no longer has elephant ivory on display as it does not have a licence.

42 n china faces a conservation challenge Discussion regarding Beijing Discrepancies observed in licensed outlets in Beijing

The list of licensed outlets is available on brochures had been there a long time and the internet for the public to find, but the were out of date. The brochure explains that shops are sprinkled around Beijing, making a picture of the specific item is compulsory it difficult to get to them to compare items for items over 50 g. The brochure, however, for sale. Licensed shops all had framed only ‘recommends’ that customers take licences on their walls stating they could the Collection card on purchase of an item, sell ivory, although the word ‘elephant’ is and many do not. Nor at the time of our not included, just the scientific name. Many visit did the website given in the brochure customers do not distinguish between actually work, so it was difficult to learn elephant and mammoth ivory and are further about the legal domestic ivory trade not encouraged to do so. Licensed shops requirements. Most visitors to the shops sometimes had official brochures on display are not interested in the brochures or the about the Collection cards and about how legal system, according to the vendors and to tell apart mammoth and elephant ivory our observations. by their cross-hatching, but sometimes the Esmond Martin Collectors sometimes choose specific items such as Buddhas and paintbrush holders.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 43 Lucy Vigne These ivory Gwan Yin figures are ready to be sent to retail outlets in Beijing.

The Collection cards for larger items (over A further difficulty with the cards is that 50 g) that required a photo, as stated they can be re-used. The newer Collection earlier, did not always exactly match cards show an elephant, but the two older the actual item. For example, the shape card versions are still in use and are still of the face or mouth was different, or frequently seen (Martin and Vigne 2011a). small objects in the design were missing, They are displayed even for commonly sold or a figure was curved in the opposite items, for which the old cards should have direction, or one had some colour and run out by now, but vendors said customers the other did not, or a polished tusk was often do not bother to take the card when slimmer or fatter than that in the picture. they purchase an item. It is thus easy to sell The differences in the details were small off illegal ivory items not recorded by the but extremely clear when given careful government by displaying an old Collection examination. When a Collection card for card that was produced for a legal item sold a large item had no photograph, a reason earlier. This is a major loophole. given was that it was old, produced before the photo system was in place (although Another common complication is that the photo system was introduced with the mammoth and elephant ivory can be difficult first ID card), or with no card at all, that to tell apart with the naked eye. A carver of the item was not for sale or had already both ivories admitted that the middle part been sold or was simply mammoth ivory. of both is similar, and if painted or wrapped Nevertheless, nearly all larger elephant in clear plastic film, as is commonly done ivory items in the licensed outlets did have to protect an item from drying out, one Collection cards seen. cannot see the item properly. The outlets

44 n china faces a conservation challenge with both types of ivory for sale often had can be mixed and muddled. As foreigners, items on the same shelf so it was easy for only legally able to buy mammoth ivory to customers and sometimes even vendors take home, we were sometimes offered a to confuse them. If the vendor would open pendant as mammoth from an elephant the cabinets and allow the customer to ivory pendant display. A carver told us that handle some of the larger items, one could in making small items from small elephant see on the bases that certain items being tusks, the carver could cut across the tusk sold as mammoth were actually elephant so the cross-hatching would run along the ivory, especially noticeable with figures and flat surface, but generally the ivory in large paintbrush holders. mammoth tusks was cut lengthwise then down so the cross-hatching ran along the For small items in the table cabinets, edges so as not to waste a big tusk. It is thus again mammoth and elephant ivory were more difficult to see the cross-hatchings, often next to one another with bundles of complicating the material’s identity further. Collection cards for elephant ivory (without Items such as buttons and small beads are pictures required) for each type of item made from bits of left-over elephant and kept at the sides of the cabinet to save mammoth ivory. Bangle-making, however, on space. But counting cards, especially was considered by some a waste of the with more small items stored in drawers, material as plain bangles have no artistic was not feasible. Again these ivory types merit and use a lot of ivory. Lucy Vigne This elephant ivory tusk, recognizable by the lines on the base, was stained to look like mammoth ivory.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 45 Vendors said that most buyers were mainly ivories apart that will not damage the item interested in the skill and technique in the has yet to be devised, and for small items it carving and were not concerned about the can be impossible to know which is which. type of ivory. Thus vendors do not bother Presently, the only two effective testing to talk about which ivory is which if they do methods are DNA analysis and radiocarbon not need to, selling an item as made from dating. Each is done on 100 mg of powdered whichever material they think the customer tusk. Commercial dating of small samples wishes to hear. costs at least USD 400 per sample (Adrian Lister, mammoth researcher, Natural Shops selling mammoth ivory rarely History Museum, London, pers. comm. 21 had posters or information about the September 2014). mammoth to explain to clientele about the animal and its uniqueness. Vendors When a back door of a licensed ivory shop claimed customers who came to their was briefly opened, we observed polished shops who specifically wanted mammoth and carved elephant tusks being packed in knew the material already and could the back room to send to buyers in gold- choose accordingly. Authenticity cards are coloured, satin-lined boxes. On another generally not available for a mammoth occasion polished elephant tusks on a item as they are not compulsory. As we licensed shop floor were being packed for were foreigners, some vendors told us we a buyer in the same manner, with no sign did not need a mammoth authenticity card of Collection cards. Any retail sale carried because Customs would recognize the item out in private, especially in the back room as mammoth, while others discouraged where items are not displayed, may not us from buying mammoth ivory saying have a card with it, a further loophole. Customs could confiscate the item. We were also told that we could pay 50 yuan Only three of the licensed outlets did not (USD 8) to test an item we purchased to have the Collection cards on view with check whether it was mammoth ivory and items on display for sale but these outlets to receive a gem authentification certificate had only small displays of ivory. One vendor if it was; we were told the technique to test said it was all mammoth ivory, but there it was a ‘trade secret ’. was no sign saying so and the larger figures examined had elephant cross-hatching A mammoth ivory authenticity card can on the bases. Another vendor used only provide another loophole in allowing tiny pieces of ivory to inlay in other items. the export of small elephant ivory items The third vendor explained most of their passing as mammoth. Customs officials collection was kept at home to sell to familiar find the items hard to tell apart; sometimes buyers who do not come to the small shop they have to send an item to the BICF for where space is too limited to display much. identification, and if it is still a problem, we Items sold ‘at home’ of course may well not were told the authorities may not allow the have Collection cards. item to be exported. A foolproof, instant, inexpensive, testing system to tell the two

46 n china faces a conservation challenge Lucy Vigne This licensed outletwas sellingelephant ivoryand alsomammoth ivoryin amodernshopping mall. the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 47 Ivory items being sold in unlicensed outlets in Beijing

Worked ivory or polished tusks can, photos on a smart-phone of ivory carvings without checks, be sold straight from the and polished tusks and for the seller to offer factory, also with the two ivories mixed to meet the potential buyer at a hotel. Such and Collection cards not produced. Two a seller showed us photos of three Gwan licensed factories indeed said they sold Yin figures and a pair of long thin polished items on commission or to familiar buyers tusks typical of the forest elephant. He said privately and four out of six licensed ivory he had come from out of town and had factories in Beijing did not have ivory retail the ivory items in his hotel and could bring outlets accessible to the public, selling on them to us and sell them secretively. commission or direct to trusted customers or to other licensed outlets. Another method to sell illegal ivory items is for a carver or trader to go around to the Some ivory dealers cannot afford to get small retail outlets and offer vendors ivory a licence. Although the licence itself is items. We were shown into a small outlet inexpensive, it can cost a lot to actually selling new and unusual narrow name seals obtain one due to corruption, ivory dealers from Japan. Bangles and beaded bracelets told us. We sometimes noticed elephant that are commonly seen in small unlicensed ivory carvings in unlicensed outlets that outlets could be smuggled in by Chinese were incorrectly being sold as mammoth. workers in Africa to sell in these outlets. Another sales technique is for a seller Some items from Africa, such as pendants, to offer a customer, on leaving an ivory are probably touched up to improve the specialist shop, some quick glimpses of carving, as the quality of the carving seen in Lucy Vigne New name seals and pendants are common ivory items seen in unlicensed outlets.

48 n china faces a conservation challenge Lucy Vigne In unlicensed outlets, these containers, partly with ivory, are sold as cricket containers used to carry the insect to participate in a fight.

Beijing is much finer. Sometimes a vendor Illegal ivory items without official Collection displayed at the counter just one or two cards also sell through pseudonyms on little ivory items, saying he could produce the internet (TRAFFIC and China Arts and more if the customer was interested; on Crafts Association 2007; Gao and Clark one occasion we saw a drawer with illegal 2014). Temporary exhibitions are another ivory items kept open behind the counter way that carvers can show their ivory work for anyone wanting to peer in. Even without a Collection card. A third way vendors without displaying ivory in their to sell unregistered ivory objects was at shops could obtain it if it was requested. auctions for which legality was unclear; this At one such shop we saw on the counter grey market expanded sharply from 2006 a large-beaded bracelet of elephant ivory through 2011 but has fallen since then by (similar to those seen commonly for sale in 97% due to government pressure on the China and made in Africa) that a customer auction houses to implement the wildlife had requested, awaiting collection. When law fully (Gao and Clark 2014). This and we asked another vendor about obtaining other illegal ivory, however, continue to elephant ivory items, she said she had a be traded by other means in China, with friend with good-quality items whom she sales taking place among associates, and could arrange for us to meet later at a cafe. this accounts for the large amount of illegal Only in one antique centre did we see in the ivory coming into and being consumed or central hallway a poster warning customers stockpiled in China today. not to buy illegal, worked ivory.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 49 Law enforcement challenges in Beijing

China is famous for its intricate ivory carvings. There is presently no easy way of This industry has grown since around 2005, distinguishing elephant from mammoth with a resurgence in Chinese arts and culture. ivory items, especially for small items, In fact the Chinese government revitalized although ivory items sold as Chinese antiques the ivory carving industry by including it in cannot pose as mammoth, as the mammoth the first National List of Intangible Cultural ivory industry is a relatively young trade that Heritage proclaimed by the State Council in developed in Beijing after 2002. 2006. Several arts and antique centres have just been or are being built in Beijing, with Top wealthy businesspeople in China, an increasing interest in old culture. This however, only want to collect legal ivory growing industry, with more outlets selling items so as not to risk their reputation. ivory illegally, is mushrooming, making it These collectors want law enforcement to ever more difficult for inspections to take succeed against the illegal ivory trade and place under the present limited workforce to buy from trusted sources. Although only and resources of SFA and SAIC. Licensed a tiny minority of the Chinese population outlets are dispersed all over Beijing, making is involved in the ivory industry, numbers in-depth checks difficult. Loopholes (re- of buyers are growing as businesspeople used Collection cards and mixing ivories) become richer. Some speculators are block effective inspections. Some licensed buying ivory tusks, both legally and illegally, factories and retail outlets could not be aware of the reduced supply of legal ivory found at their official addresses or had (’t Sas-Rolfes et al. 2014). The destruction of changed location, further complicating any six tonnes of illegal ivory on 6 January 2014 potential official inspection. in Guangzhou signalled growing future Lucy Vigne This Chinese poster was the only one we saw in a shopping area that warned customers not to buy elephant ivory or rhino horn.

50 n china faces a conservation challenge Lucy Vigne This licensed specialist outlet shows the official brochures in the foreground and ivory items with Collection cards behind. restrictions on elephant ivory, making it for both elephant and mammoth ivory appear more sought after, while more items that cannot be re-used, and the easily available by some, we were told. present system is not sufficiently open and transparent to the public. More effective Government transparency regarding ivory ivory associations occur in Japan (Vigne stock is inadequate: information on raw and Martin 2010), which connect the ivory ivory prices and quantities sold by the dealers and carvers so they look after one government is inadequate, as is information another’s interests to keep out the illegal on mammoth ivory stock, unlike in many traders in ivory and guard their reputations. other places such as Hong Kong that freely So far, no very rich Chinese ivory collectors provide information on their stockpiles and or philanthropists nor the government about their mammoth ivory imports and have helped with significant funding to export statistics. The public cannot attain assist with enforcement to improve the any such information from China, adding to ivory industry’s reputation, which is being the difficulties of monitoring the trade and tarnished due to the illegal ivory trade. law enforcement. We also had difficulties obtaining information from the government Officials are generally against a domestic in Beijing. ban on ivory, which they say would push the industry completely underground, making There are no effective mammoth and it harder to control, along with problems elephant ivory associations that can of compensating private owners. Yet law oversee workable identification cards enforcement officers, although achieving

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 51 some success in arrests within China, have ivory dealers are aware of some traders not reduced the illegal ivory trade. Elephant who mix the two ivories; the good dealers poaching in Africa for illegal ivory has prefer to sell only whole tusks or large items increased, with China known to be the main that are easily recognized as mammoth, not consumer of smuggled ivory today. wasting the material on trinkets that can be mixed with elephant ivory, denigrating their In Beijing a difficulty is that legal factories industry. and legal outlets for both elephant and mammoth ivory are dispersed, with no Until simple and effective techniques are specialized ivory arts centre, locating all of it discovered to distinguish mammoth from together for easy checking. Another difficulty elephant ivory and to ascertain that the is that the outlets often sell mammoth and elephant ivory is legal, and until workable elephant ivory items together rather than inspections can take place, the domestic having specialized outlets for each. ivory retail markets will continue to be a conduit for some illegal ivory. The largest Limited funds and lack of political will have illegal ivory trade, which the government prevented the government from taking on has to tackle of course, regards illegal ivory trained, non-government monitoring and imports entering the black market and being inspection teams qualified to distinguish sold among individuals and through social the ivories and examine the Collection media, not through the retail outlets. cards. The most trustworthy mammoth Lucy Vigne More posters such as these are needed in conspicuous locations to sensitize the Chinese towards elephant conservation.

52 n china faces a conservation challenge Shanghai findings Short history of Shanghai’s ivory carving

In 1955 the government started an ivory powder was sold to a pharmaceutical carving centre called the Shanghai Jade factory for 3 yuan (USD 1) for 1,000 kg. Carving Factory with 150 carvers. The The artisans specialized in carving scenes carvers had simple hand tools, progressing of mountains and rivers and mythological to machine tools in 1958. By 1985 there Chinese animals. The items were sold in were 120 ivory carvers, 30% women, out their factory showroom as well as in other of a workforce of 900 in the factory. Most shops in China and were also exported. The ivory artisans worked together in one large most expensive item they made was a large building, receiving a monthly wage of 80 (2 x 1 m) figure of a Chinese emperor, which yuan (USD 25). The carvers received a bonus took seven artisans almost three years of 40 yuan, making a total of 120 yuan (USD to complete. The factory’s annual retail 38). Further bonuses were given to carvers turnover for ivory items in the mid-1980s who produced items ahead of the official was USD 400,000 to 500,000. There may schedule. They worked from 7:40 to 11:30 have been a few amateur artisans working and from 12:00 to 16:20 five days a week. out of their homes in and around Shanghai They worked also on Saturdays, finishing at this time, but no other factories were one hour earlier. They used 5–6 tonnes of producing ivory items (Mr Da, vice manager, tusks a year, which the factory obtained from Shanghai Jade Carving Factory, pers. comm. an import/export corporation. The leftover 14 December 1985; Martin 1988). Lucy Vigne Ivory carvings produced in the past are traded among collectors sometimes in restricted showrooms, as seen here, along with a fake rhino horn (posed as a real rhino horn) for sale.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 53 By 2002 the Shanghai Jade Carving Factory In 1985 there were no mammoth ivory items had stopped carving ivory. Stiles, during his being produced or sold in the Shanghai 2002 survey did not find any ivory factories Jade Carving Factory. In 2002, no mammoth in Shanghai, but he believed there could ivory workshops were found in Shanghai have been small workshops employing although some mammoth ivory items were three or four artisans each (Martin and seen for sale, carved in Guangdong and Stiles 2003). Fujian provinces (Martin and Stiles 2003). Lucy Vigne This Friendship Store sold 1,159 ivory items in 2002 and today has a licensed outlet with 118 elephant ivory items counted on display.

54 n china faces a conservation challenge Licensed ivory factories in Shanghai today

There are three licensed ivory factories in hallmark. Usually a personal ivory name seal Shanghai, one with a new licence and two provided by the factory would cost 4,800 older ones that were in the building we yuan (USD 787) for the name seal with three visited. We saw five carving rooms along or four words carved onto the head of the a hall, and we watched a woman and a name seal. A large blank business name man carver at work pencilling onto 30-cm seal of 15 x 5 cm, which is not made at the ivory tusks the outline of human figures factory, is normally priced at about 46,000 copied from similar sized models. When yuan (USD 7,541). It costs 200 yuan (USD 33) they saw us, they closed the door. One a word and making it takes a whole day of carver came out and agreed to answer us labour. The carvers also engrave hallmarks if she felt comfortable with our questions. on name seals made of other materials, She said they carve only elephant ivory especially jade and agate. A personal stone and have never used mammoth ivory. The signature stamp of 8 x 2 cm costs 100 yuan government supplies their ivory and they (USD 16) per word, more than ivory, as it sell the items in their state-owned shop near takes three-quarters of a day to carve. The the factory; the most common items made top-quality material, the engravers said, is are pendants and name seals. We learned bloodstone (a type of chalcedony), then jade there were 10 carvers and one master carver or agate, then ivory, buffalo horn and finally in this factory. Most carvers earn 3,000 yuan wood. For about every 200 stone name seal (USD 492) plus bonuses per month, and a engravings they make about 30 of ivory, the master carver earns double. Most ivory for engravers said. sale in Shanghai’s licensed outlets, however, is carved in Guangzhou, not Shanghai, we were told. The other named licensed factory operating in the building appeared to be closed.

We also visited a small name seal hallmark carving factory with cutting machines to make personal signature stamps; 27 artisans were employed, the same number for several years. They engraved hallmarks by hand with a thin scalpel, requiring a bright light and a very steady hand. The business is state owned and the artisans are paid a salary. Customers normally bring in their raw name seals and ask for the hallmark of their choice to be added. The general charge is 60 yuan (USD 10) per word (or character); half a day of labour is required to finish a Lucy Vigne An engraver painstakingly works on the hallmark of a name seal.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 55 Mammoth ivory can be carved anywhere in Fujian Province rather than Shanghai with no official licence required. Carvings where the rents are higher. We interviewed made in Shanghai consist of ‘cute’ small a mammoth ivory carver based in Shanghai items, we were told. The better items come who had started his work with one other from Fuzhou and Guangzhou—areas that carver 20 years ago, and for the last five are particularly humid, thus more suited years has had 26 carvers working with him to carving mammoth ivory than the north- in Shanghai. He has a big stock of mammoth east of the country, as mammoth ivory tusks so does not fear running out, he can be dry and brittle, sometimes cracking claimed, even if the material from north- when carved. We were also told that large east Russia becomes more scarce. items that take time to produce are carved

Retail outlets, items and prices for elephant and mammoth ivory in Shanghai

During our April/May survey, we covered all although some were in fact elephant—of the main shopping areas in Shanghai where which 608 were in 3 of the licensed outlets ivory was for sale, and we counted 2,172 ivory mentioned above, 45 in 3 unlicensed outlets items in 119 open outlets, both licensed and that also sold elephant ivory, and 2,894 unlicensed (Table 4). Of these, 1,366 objects that were in 14 outlets selling mammoth were in 13 out of the currently 15 licensed ivory and supposedly not elephant ivory outlets in Shanghai that were found at the Thus of the total 119 outlets we counted addresses available on the website, and selling elephant ivory items, 6 were selling 806 in 106 smaller non-licensed outlets. We mammoth ivory items as well (in 3 licensed also counted 3,547 items in 20 outlets that and 3 unlicensed outlets) and 14 more were were named as mammoth ivory (Table 4)— selling only so-called mammoth ivory items. Lucy Vigne Ivory items are often displayed in licensed retail outlets with a glass of water to prevent the objects from cracking.

56 n china faces a conservation challenge Lucy Vigne These ivory items were carved in Shanghai under licence and are for sale in the factory’s retail outlet.

licensed ivory outlets be displayed more often in the old-style Nearly all of the 15 currently licensed Friendship (department) Stores as different outlets in the city were ivory specialist from the modern shopping malls. One outlets. There were 5 in Friendship Stores, 4 famous old Friendship Store near People’s in large gift centres, 3 in street shops, and 1 Square that displayed much ivory in 2002 in a general shopping mall. Two outlets on (Martin and Stiles 2003) was nowadays the current list appeared not to be selling considered too old style and out of fashion ivory any more at the addresses available. in downtown Shanghai, and this Friendship Three outlets were newly licensed: one in Store has moved out into a poorer suburb. the recently built Pudong Friendship Store Nevertheless, familiar VIP customers still and 2 belonging to the well-known Lao Feng return to this same store to buy items as Xian chain that used to be state owned and gifts for their colleagues. Most new malls now is private. These replaced 3 outlets now prefer to sell Western-style clothes that no longer have licences that we visited and kitchenware as opposed to any ivory, and no longer were seen selling ivory items. which can, like some other traditional items and crafts, have a slow turnover. For Most outlets retain their licences. It can take example, one outlet had a 20% discount several years to obtain a licence, so they promotion to improve sales for the Labour are in high demand and can be expensive Festival (1–3 May) but still there were no to obtain due to the facilitation processes buyers during our visit. We surveyed all required. Some licensed outlets in Shanghai five Friendship Stores with licensed ivory were state owned and others were privately outlets, finding ivory usually near the gift owned shops or outlets, although vendors section, along with other traditional gifts sometimes seemed unsure, or preferred and house decorations, such as agar wood, to say state-owned even if they were not. rosewood, jade, screen paintings and large Traditional hand-made items tend to porcelain vases. The diverse arrays of ivory

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 57 Lucy Vigne These business name seals are clearly displayed with the newer Collection card, but being small items they do not need a photograph.

objects were all priced clearly with typed sale. This outlet has a licence for carving labels as well as Collection cards. Some ivory and has four master carvers producing licensed shops did not have price labels, works of art, as well as the usual trinkets. and the vendors had to tell us the prices There were posters in this shop of two of all the items, sometimes reluctantly for master carvers with examples of their ivory elephant ivory, as they said incorrectly we work, including a big fish that was carved could not buy it, preferring to concentrate several years ago and was still on display on prices of their mammoth ivory items for sale at 1,280,000 yuan (USD 209,836). for us to buy. It is easy for a customer to A similar licensed outlet had an exhibition confuse the two ivories on first glance, with displaying ivory with no Collection cards or just the small Collection cards for elephant prices as the items were simply on exhibit and ID cards (when available) for mammoth apparently not for sale. ivory to separate them. Generally, a similar variety of items was available, big and small, unlicensed ivory outlets of both elephant and mammoth ivory, in all As in Beijing, the majority of outlets the outlets. selling non-registered ivory items with no Collection cards were in ‘antique’ and jade One licensed outlet had a 30-day exhibition centres. These small outlets were usually in of intricate ivory carvings as well as a long rows of similar shops selling numerous museum that opened this year of precious ornaments, including a sprinkling of old stones and ivory, displaying items not for ivory items that usually looked second-hand.

58 n china faces a conservation challenge Lucy Vigne These items were on exhibit at a temporary stall with no licence in an antique centre with older ivory ornaments among other trinkets.

In some such centres, many of the outlets Yu Gardens and Fanbang Road, as was the were closed, being hobbies for rich people case in 2002 (Martin and Stiles 2003). Some who don’t bother to keep the outlets open centres also had in their central hallway daily. Many of the old-looking ivory items temporary exhibits where vendors display nowadays for sale are faked to look old, as a variety of items on tables, sometimes most ivory objects were shipped to Taiwan selling old or new small ivory items with no in the late-1940s or destroyed during the Collection cards as they are not licensed. A Cultural Revolution. Some outlets in these jewellery centre had a temporary exhibition centres specialized in new items made of of finely carved elephant and mammoth wood or bamboo with very small ivory parts, ivory items on show (not for sale) in cabinets, such as tea items, wood necklaces, bracelets with no Collection cards; the outlet has no and rosaries with small ivory beads between licence, but being an exhibition with items the wooden beads, incense containers, not for sale, these pieces are legal to display. and insect cages or containers for fighting crickets. It was often impossible to tell if previously licensed ivory these new ivory parts were made of elephant outlets or mammoth ivory. Sometimes the smallest There were three outlets on the 2011/12 beads were ivory look-alike plastic with wavy licensed list that no longer had licences lines imitating ivory cross-hatching. but three more newly licensed outlets had replaced them on the 2013/14 list. We Small numbers of ivory items, often looking found one outlet in an antique centre that like antiques, are in shops found around seemed to have closed down, and the two

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 59 other outlets in large antique centres could elephant ivory items not be identified to check whether they had In nearly all the licensed outlets ivory items any ivories. were recently carved. They averaged 105 items per outlet and consisted of bangles mammoth ivory outlets both plain and carved, plain or carved Of the 20 outlets with mammoth ivory, 14 beaded bracelets, earrings, bead necklaces, supposedly sold only mammoth ivory and 6 oblong religious pendants, smaller oval sold both ivories. Some of these outlets also face pendants of Buddha and Gwan Yin, sold wood and jade ornaments. One of the 11 charms/toggles, carved tusks or bridges, mammoth specialist shops had 1,700 items plain polished tusks (some with drawings on display, including many small trinkets and calligraphy), figures and figurines (of that the vendor would sell wholesale (for animals, humans and religious deities), 50 or more pieces) at a 35% discount rather composite scenes, chopsticks, cigarette than at his usual 10% discount, he said. He holders, name seals, combs, walnuts, could send us items abroad by air and they netsuke, paintbrush holders and other would sell well in New York, he suggested. containers. There were also miscellaneous He advised us to specialize in one item, such items, such as the abacus, belt ornaments, as pendants, to sell. vegetables, crickets or cicadas, mahjong, Chinese chess, hand exercise balls, opium The better mammoth ivory specialist outlets pipes, snuff/scent bottles and small teapots. had green authenticity cards for each item There were three types of Collection with pictures for the larger objects; these cards, as in Beijing, the oldest produced in vendors said it was important to have the 2004 and the newest in 2010. The oldest card if one were taking the item out of the Collection cards remained beside those country. Chinese buyers, who buy most items that had apparently not yet sold in items, do not normally bother to take the the shop, according to the vendors. Some cards. These cards are supplied not by the said they updated the prices and some said government but by the factories or Beijing the older items on display remained at the science labs for verification, we were told, older prices, for example bead necklaces to help their sales. and bangles that they had received in large numbers. The vendors claimed it was better As in the elephant ivory outlets, we saw few to buy an older, pre-2011 item as the price customers in these mammoth ivory outlets. was less, especially for items like carved The better outlets sell mammoth ivory tusks, for in five years, a vendor said, her carvings and not wasteful trinkets, but do prices had risen twice, making the ivory a make intricately carved snuff bottles in the good investment. Licensed outlets also traditional style. We saw hardly any posters sometimes sold modern items such as 8-GB in most mammoth ivory specialty outlets memory stick holders as well as traditional- or other shops, unlike in Guangzhou, as style items such as magic balls that are vendors believe that those wishing to buy usually made in Guangzhou where they are their items already know about mammoth popular in Feng Shui house decoration. ivory, as we were told in Beijing.

60 n china faces a conservation challenge Lucy Vigne Esmond Martin These twospecialistoutletssoldlargeamountsofmammothivoryinShanghai. the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 61 Lucy Vigne Gwan Yin figures and carved elephant tusks are frequently seen in the licensed outlets.

Unlicensed outlets had smaller items in far mammoth ivory items fewer numbers of ivory objects (an average Many of the mammoth ivory items on of 9 per outlet), usually old-style items such display were similar to those made of as snuff bottles, pill containers, intricate elephant ivory, such as carved or polished fans, fan handles, card holders, ink wells, tusks, that were generally much larger with netsuke, bottle stoppers, scroll ends from their recognizable spiral and brown outer the Qing dynasty, incense containers, nail layer. There was a polished mammoth tusk cleaners and polishers, combs, hair brushes of 50 kg for a million yuan (USD 163,934). (sometimes European with engraved More commonly seen were tusk pieces with initials), walking sticks with ivory handles human and animal carvings and religious or pommels, doctor’s tongue depressors, figures, such as Gwan Yin or the Laughing hairpins, opium and smoking pipes, Buddha that are used for decoration, as exercise hand balls, fortune-telling sticks, well as jewellery, pendants and charms or book marks/covers, as well as the usual toggles to hang on car mirrors, handbags name seals, jewellery, figurines, cigarette and elsewhere. In the better mammoth holders, chopsticks and paintbrush holders. ivory specialist outlets, most items were Occasionally tusk tips, supposedly old, larger: at least 15–30 cm in size, and were sold in unlicensed outlets to be used the items were recognizably made of as name seals or for Chinese massage. For mammoth ivory with the distinctive outer all the outlets, pendants were the most darker layer left on purpose on the carved common, 19% (Table 9). figures so as not to confuse the items

62 n china faces a conservation challenge Lucy Vigne This set of three figures is made of mammoth ivory. with elephant ivory. Animal and human or figures and figurines, 36% (Table 10). religious figures were on display in about equal numbers. The better outlets did not prices for elephant and make or sell trinkets, saying they were a mammoth ivory items waste of material. In outlets licensed to sell Prices of both elephant and mammoth ivory elephant ivory, mammoth ivory also was for items were similar to those in Beijing and sale in 3 out of 13 (a smaller proportion than varied according to the overhead of an outlet in Beijing), and they displayed many more (Table 11). The most expensive item of ivory small items that as usual resembled ivory, was a dragon boat of 180 cm with many such as jewellery and charms, but without intricately carved figures apparently made cards. The smaller mammoth ivory outlets in the 1950s or 1960s for 5,800,000 yuan also did not generally bother with cards (USD 950,820) and the cheapest was a pair to prove the authenticity of the material; of earrings for 280 yuan (USD 46), while the sometimes vendors said that if a card were most expensive item of mammoth ivory was to be provided with an item, it would cost a carved tusk of 275 cm for 9,600,000 (USD 100 yuan (USD 16) extra to get it from the 1,573,770) and the least expensive apparently factory and it would take a few days. We were was a toothpick for 20 yuan (USD 3). told by these vendors that the card was not required to export a mammoth ivory item as The most expensive ivory items are usually Customs could distinguish it from elephant carvings from whole heavy pieces of ivory, not ivory. The most common items seen were large composites that consist of small ivory

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 63 pieces glued together (sometimes mixed those named as mammoth ivory items. For with bone). In the most expensive licensed more expensive items, some collectors want outlets, vendors tend to sell the higher- elephant ivory and others want mammoth quality items to rich collectors who may buy ivory items, so they do not compete on sales, three items at a time, vendors said. Prices we were told. Again, netsukes/figurines for the same items in most Friendship Stores tended to be more expensive averaging were similar for the same item, with prices at USD 937 versus USD 291 for mammoth sometimes fixed and sometimes negotiable. (Tables 12 and 13). These items were more expensive than in other outlets, being popular with VIP For mammoth ivory items, a shop owner customers with large expense accounts. said prices had risen due to the higher price Ivory items with a Collection card sell for of the raw material, and thus buying such more than those with no card, we were told, items was becoming a good investment. A and our findings showed this was the case. 20-cm human figure priced at 16,000 yuan Ivory items without an ID card often are (USD 2,623) today was 10,000 yuan (USD priced similarly to mammoth ivory items, 1,208) 10 years ago, a vendor said. Small some vendors said, although generally they items are the most commonly sold, and sold ivory items for more than mammoth they have increased in Chinese popularity, ivory items, but for smaller items price also being nowadays considered, like elephant depended, as in Beijing, on the quality of the ivory, to be from a strong animal that can material and the skill and carving technique, protect people from bad luck and bring vendors said. Mammoth and elephant ivory good luck. Vendors would often offer a 10– prices quoted to us for jewellery (bangles, 20% discount on all mammoth as well as bracelets, necklaces, pendants and rings) elephant ivory items, if requested. were on average 36% more expensive than Lucy Vigne These expensive mammoth ivory netsukes varied in price from around 4,000 yuan (USD 655) to 7,000 yuan (USD 1,147) but a 10% discount was offered.

64 n china faces a conservation challenge Substitutes

Customers who are collectors will often sometimes offered bangles that were ivory choose items made of different materials, look-alike plastic, saying it came from the such as name seals, necklaces or Buddhas. sea, meaning from the walrus, for 1,500 yuan Carvings made of jade and other valuable (USD 246) each, or necklaces supposedly of stones and woods are also popular in China. mammoth ivory, but again made of plastic for 3,500 yuan (USD 574). Most tourists would We did not see many carvings made of find it hard to distinguish these items from ivories apart from elephant and mammoth. ivory, but we never saw tourists buying them. Several scenic composites made of bone, 23 cm long, were priced at 2,000 yuan (USD In the cheaper tourist flea market outlets 328) each. Slightly larger composites of 30 cm there were many old Chinese Cultural made in a similar style but of elephant ivory Revolution memorabilia and old bone items, were 25,300 yuan (USD 4,148) on average; recognizable by their tiny flecks. There were mammoth ivory ones were around 15,000 also ivory look-alike plastic pendants, belt yuan (USD 2,459). Life-size lobsters made of ornaments and bangles made to look old. buffalo bone were 6,800 yuan (USD 1,115); There was much less genuine ivory in the they would sell for 10 times more if made of flea market open stalls (with no glass for mammoth ivory, vendors said. The higher- protection) than there had been in 2002. quality mammoth ivory outlets sometimes had bone and walrus carvings. Bone contains Ivory copies of the Tang dynasty sword were little dots and is lighter in weight than ivory, seen in a licensed outlet. The ivory sword while walrus ivory is plain, shinier and heavier is hung in the house to protect the family than elephant and mammoth ivory. and to bring power and luck. The traditional sword is often considered too dangerous to Vendors in small unlicensed outlets display in the house. Lucy Vigne This bone composite, the vendor claimed, was made from elephant bone; it was priced at 2,000 yuan (USD 328).

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 65 Buyers and vendors

Chinese are by far the main buyers of supply from an extinct species, and from the elephant ivory in Shanghai’s retail outlets, as in bigger and stronger mammoth. Customers Beijing. Well over 90% of the buyers are from still prefer elephant ivory as it is usually mainland China. Vendors cannot always tell whiter and considered more beautiful; it whether a Chinese customer is from abroad, is traditionally considered to protect the as is sometimes the case. Also, Japanese body and home against bad luck. Vendors visitors, former major buyers of ivory objects said educated Shanghai people prefer ivory in China, still like to buy small ‘antique’ ivory more than those from the rural areas. In items that they take out of the country in their most licensed outlets, vendors displayed pockets, vendors said. In the licensed outlets elephant ivory only, not mammoth ivory found mainly in shopping centres, the best as well, unlike in Beijing. Some promoted customers are VIPs. Collectors also choose only elephant ivory to customers, saying it the more expensive items, and young people was superior and more sought after, being prefer the trinkets that they can afford. We available only in licensed outlets. saw few buyers, about seven, during our study in Shanghai. Vendors occasionally said, Vendors had mixed comments about their incorrectly, that foreigners could not buy sale of elephant ivory items. Some said elephant ivory items, but that our Chinese business was okay or good. Others said that guide could buy an item on our behalf. It is government controls were getting stricter, rare to see Western foreigners looking at ivory reducing business from what it could be. items, and sometimes vendors presumed we Some commented to our Chinese guide that were from a wildlife protection agency and ivory was not popular now as an investment not buyers. Some vendors felt comfortable because elephant ivory cannot be sold with us looking at their items as they said abroad. Furthermore, many companies buy they were legal, while others got agitated. ivory as presents for colleagues to facilitate At least 4 out of the 13 licensed outlets that business, but with less corruption there is less we visited had some items either without gift-giving these days among government- Collection cards or with cards that looked owned companies, as elsewhere in China faulty or the vendors were mixing elephant (Gao and Clark 2014). Furthermore, some with mammoth ivory. vendors said for the average customer, ivory items are not a good investment as Buyers often prefer elephant ivory as it government controls are getting too strict, has to be licensed, making it appear more so if you buy items now, even with Collection ‘special’ whereas mammoth ivory can be cards, in several years you may not be able sold anywhere, some vendors told us. In to re-sell them easily. Thus, they said, who general, mammoth ivory sells for a little would take that chance as an investment? It less than elephant ivory, vendors said, as it would only work, these vendors explained, is less popular, being washa or a fossil, and for people ‘in groups who share or exchange there is no tradition for it, even if it is finite in items among themselves internally’.

66 n china faces a conservation challenge At least 80% of the customers for ivory said that the better-quality, whiter mammoth ivory items are Chinese, as in mammoth ivory was more expensive. Beijing; vendors said they also sold items to Japanese, Hong Kong Chinese, Taiwanese, We received contradictory information on and a few to Americans, Russians, British mammoth ivory sales. One outlet, having and other Europeans. Westerners chose sold mammoth ivory for five years, was animal carvings and Asians also liked closing down the next day in a shopping religious figures. Sales of mammoth ivory mall due to poor sales, vendors mentioned; have been going up because of the decrease we re-visited the location later and indeed, in the legal ivory trade with the present the outlet had gone, replaced by modern and perceived restrictions. Mammoth ivory decorative ceramics on display. Vendors at items have been going up in price each the better mammoth ivory specialist shops year for the past three years in the better remarked that the number of Chinese buyers outlets; the carvers of these items leave was increasing due to rising salaries, and part of the outside of the mammoth tusk as the price of mammoth ivory tusks goes for easy identification, not to confuse it up and imports go down, being a limited with elephant ivory, which some collectors commodity, mammoth ivory will become an prefer. Generally, vendors selling mammoth increasingly good investment, they believe. Lucy Vigne Chinese customers examine the ivory items they wish to purchase in great detail; beaded bracelets are frequently sold to men.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 67 Lucy Vigne Lucy Vigne With so many mammoth ivory items such as these now being carved, some retail sellers are mixing elephant ivory items among the mammoth ones for sale, making it hard for inspectors to tell them apart. Lucy Vigne Lucy Vigne

68 n china faces a conservation challenge Discussion regarding Shanghai Discrepancies observed in licensed outlets in Shanghai

In several outlets some of the ivory items Also as in Beijing, items in licensed outlets had no Collection cards available. One outlet being sold as mammoth ivory to foreign had 30 items on display with no Collection customers sometimes had elephant ivory cards, although other items had the cards. cross-hatchings clearly visible and prices The reason given to us was that the items were often similar for the items in these without cards were not for sale. That could instances. Mammoth ivory items and so- be used as an excuse for any item without a called mammoth ivory items in most outlets Collection card. Another outlet had Collection had no individual authenticity cards as they cards that were faded and slightly blurred are not compulsory. As the items in these and did not look original. These Collection outlets usually closely resemble elephant cards were the brown, newest cards with an ivory and can be displayed beside one elephant picture on them, but they generally another in a cabinet, it is easy to confuse had a pale greenish tinge. The vendors in this the type of ivory. outlet were particularly hostile and would not allow any photography or questions, If there was a big price difference for claiming that such behaviour was impolite. identical-looking small items of mammoth Their behaviour suggested they were aware versus elephant ivory, the reason given of the ID card discrepancies and did not was the piece was one of their latest, or want us looking at their items in fear we the carving skill was different—the material were investigators. Another outlet had its was not the reason for the price difference. Collection cards for three large figures put Some items may be sold as a combination away (yet it is compulsory to display them of mammoth ivory and elephant ivory, beside any item over 50 g) and the vendor without a Collection card. For example we said she had no Collection cards at all for the saw a large, 49-layer magic ball of elephant smaller items for sale. ivory on a mammoth ivory stand. Licensed outlets also selling mammoth ivory have no As in Beijing, many of the Collection cards posters about mammoths. The government were the old version, but often the ivory does not demand that they do, nor does items with them appeared new with updated the government promote mammoth ivory prices, suggesting the cards are being re- carvings, which can be sold by anybody. used. We were frequently told, as in Beijing, Government outlets concentrate on selling that Chinese buyers don’t bother to take the elephant ivory items their own factories Collection cards for elephant ivory, but it was produce, and thus they prefer to promote the customer’s choice. The newest brochures elephant ivory as an important part of about the ID cards strongly recommend Chinese cultural heritage. taking the card but it is not compulsory.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 69 Ivory items being sold in unlicensed outlets in Shanghai

Sometimes an unlicensed outlet may have of ivory items, offering them to the vendor, an exhibition displaying elephant ivory whose shop had no licence. We watched items with no Collection cards as these items the vendor decline, saying sales were not are not for sale at the exhibition. After the so good for ivory so she would not buy exhibition, however, there is a loophole as his items. If she were to buy, she would there is nothing to stop an interested buyer prefer small items that sell better, she said. from purchasing an item with no Collection Japanese visitors like to come to her shop card. It was not clear whether the carvers for small ivory antiques. We saw this again were private or from licensed outlets. We in another antique centre, with a young also visited a restricted exhibit outlet, man walking along the corridors trying to available to collectors only, in a building sell to unlicensed shops the ivory items with high security where collectors can buy he was carrying. This is a way to sell illegal and sell both genuine and fake antique items carved in China or smuggled in from items, including ivory, to other collectors, other countries. and no Collection cards were seen. Some vendors in unlicensed outlets will Illegal worked ivory is sometimes sold pretend an item is ivory when it is plastic, or wholesale directly to vendors to re-sell. In that it is old when it is not, in order to make one large antique market (a big building a sale. One long hairpin, for example, priced consisting of lots of little shops), an illegal at 6,000 yuan (USD 984), supposedly was wholesaler came into an outlet with a bag made of Asian elephant ivory from the Ming Lucy Vigne These painted elephant ivory snuff bottles, produced for us to see from a drawer in an unlicensed outlet, which were made in the 1950s, are selling today for 5,000 yuan (USD 820) each, the vendor said.

70 n china faces a conservation challenge Lucy Vigne Unlicensed outlets tend to sell unusual, old-type items such as this inkwell.

Dynasty but was actually bone. The vendor Although Collection cards are supposed offered to write a paper receipt to say it was to be present with all ivory items, for a handicraft so we would be able to take it second-hand or old/antique items sold out of the country legally, he said. Another at auction, enforcing the regulations was vendor claimed his so-called Asian ivory fan lax. In December 2011, however, the SFA was more expensive at 1,600 yuan (USD 262) produced a notice urging all Chinese than his African ivory fan at 1,300 yuan (USD auction houses to abide by the wildlife 213), but then he reversed himself on the law, ‘whenever the products were made, prices (they actually appeared to be made the purchasing, transporting, and selling of bone and plastic respectively), just saying (including auction) of wildlife products shall what he thought would best give him a sale. comply with the relevant wildlife laws and regulation’. This caused a collapse in the Auction houses, as in Beijing, are popular sale of ivory at auctions in Shanghai, as for in Shanghai, and elephant ivory items, as Beijing and all cities in China, although it opposed to mammoth ivory items, were has not been totally eliminated (Gao and often sold in this manner in the past. Clark 2014).

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 71 Law enforcement challenges in Shanghai

The licensed outlets are spread all over the to hear, and without expert training and city, making inspections difficult to conduct, testing devices, ivories and substitutes especially as locations can change and are can be confused with one another, making not updated on the website during the two- inspections difficult. year licensed period. In unlicensed outlets, not all ivory items are Licensed outlets have signs in English to say on display, making inspection even more that taking ivory items out of the country difficult. For example, in one outlet, the is prohibited, although the signs do not vendor brought out from a drawer 24 ivory differentiate between mammoth and snuff bottles that she said were carved in the elephant ivory. Similarly, only the word ‘ivory’ 1950s, selling for 5,000 yuan (USD 820) each. is written on the licences that are framed on the walls of all the licensed outlets. In the small outlets many vendors were not concerned about selling ivory openly to us, In the antique centres where some unlicensed saying it was not a problem to take small outlets selling ivory are found, we saw no signs so-called antiques out of the country. The stating that it is prohibited to sell illegal ivory younger vendors tended to know little about items bought from non-licensed sources. regulations on elephant and mammoth ivory.

Vendors can vary the name of the material Many vendors were sensitive to photos. of an object, its age and price, depending Those in antique outlets in and around on what they think the customer wants the common tourist areas of Shanghai Lucy Vigne Plastic look-alike ivory with curvy lines can be made into jewellery looking very like real ivory.

72 n china faces a conservation challenge Lucy Vigne Small ivory items, such as charms and bracelets, are sometimes displayed in licensed outlets with bundles of Collection cards placed to one side making it difficult for us to see if each item had a card. were the most suspicious of our presence, as outlets do not need a licence to sell and on two occasions we had to leave the mammoth ivory. A carved piece of tusk is building before finishing our count due to sometimes stained brown on the outside being followed. We learned that several to resemble mammoth ivory. Some of the days earlier some Westerners walked items were in the shape of small elephant around the area and a little later the police tusks, lacking the wide circumference of came to investigate, making the vendors mammoth ivory items. It can be hard to be nervous that foreigners may be journalists, sure which ivory is which, again a challenge or animal welfare people, who may cause for inspectors. In one fairly new antique trouble. Most outlets selling ivory, however, centre, five mammoth ivory specialist are in the newer antique centres sprinkled outlets had opened in the last two years, around the city that are hardly ever visited four of which had recognizable elephant by Westerners and these vendors were ivory items being sold as mammoth ivory. not nervous about us. These outlets have A few mammoth ID cards were on hand in less pressure from visitors complaining one outlet, but only for larger items and to the police about illegal ivory. So many without pictures, in an attempt to give new outlets are scattered about that the authenticity to their mammoth ivory items. government cannot realistically monitor Other outlets in this centre that we saw them all in these antique centres. had no cards. One vendor admitted that a licence to sell elephant ivory items was too Several new so-called mammoth ivory difficult to get, so although elephant ivory outlets displayed some genuine pieces of items sold more readily, he claimed he mammoth but they are also sometimes sold mammoth ivory instead and business a cover for what is really elephant ivory, was apparently poor. However, the recent

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 73 opening of five new so-called mammoth ivory items with no Collection cards, being ivory outlets in one antique centre would unlicensed outlets. Ivory items in these suggest business in whichever ivory they mammoth ivory outlets are thus sold from are selling is expanding. In these outlets, the display shelves, from behind the counter as well as clearly seeing elephant ivory or the back of the shop, or items can be items on the shelves that were said to be brought to the shop on special order. There mammoth ivory, we also saw customers seems to be no fear of inspection as the buying elephant ivory figures in satin- mammoth ivory trade is legal, thus serving lined boxes that were hidden behind the as an easy smoke screen for elephant ivory counter. The transaction took place at the sales. Dubious mammoth ivory outlets are back of the shop with several Chinese men also spoiling the business for the better buying items, and a quick examination of mammoth ivory outlets, we were told, the base of the items before the boxes were as well as allowing illegal elephant ivory quickly closed and whisked away enabled to be sold that competes with legal sales us to verify the material. These dubious and tarnishes the reputation of the whole new mammoth ivory outlets are thus being elephant and mammoth ivory carving used as a conduit to sell illegal elephant industry in China. Lucy Vigne Lucy Vigne Mammoth ivory items, such as this magic ball and Buddha, are sometimes also made of elephant ivory.

74 n china faces a conservation challenge GENERAL TRENDS IN THE IVORY TRADE IN CHINA Lucy Vigne These pendants, necklaces, combs and charms were all made of Grade A mammoth ivory that closely resembles elephant ivory.

China remains the main centre for manufacturing ivory in the world and more mammoth ivory is also carved in China than anywhere else. From 1990 to 2002 small illegal private ivory workshops had replaced the large government ivory carving factories that had run out of legal supplies of raw ivory. In 2009 the government factories obtained new legal supplies of tusks that revitalized the legal industry. Since then there has also been a huge increase in illegal ivory coming into the country.

In 2002, as stated earlier, the wholesale price from the open market. Another explanation in China for an average tusk of 4 kg was about for the high prices is due to the increased USD 120–170/kg (Martin and Stiles 2003). By bribery charges required to move tusks 2010 the same size tusk for sale in Fuzhou, illegally out of Africa to entrepots in Asia and a major ivory processing centre in southern finally to China; regrettably little research China, from private sources was USD 750/ has been carried out on this common and kg (Martin and Vigne 2011a). In early 2014 important activity. the price from 2010 had almost tripled in Beijing to USD 2,100/kg. One main reason Prices have also risen considerably for mentioned earlier for the high price, as some mammoth ivory due to demand. Again, as researchers strongly support, is that more stated earlier, Grade A mammoth ivory, for Chinese are buying tusks and worked ivory example, cost wholesale on average in Hong solely as an investment, removing them Kong and Guangzhou USD 210/kg in 2002

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 75 and USD 400/kg in Fuzhou in 2010, rising up retail sale has doubled while in Shanghai to USD 1,639/kg in 2014 in Beijing (Martin the number has remained almost the same. and Stiles 2003; Martin and Vigne 2011a). For mammoth ivory, from no items seen in Beijing the increase in retail sales has been The government increased the number of huge and in Shanghai it has been 12-fold. factories in China from 9 in 2004 when the new licensing system started to 37 in 2013 In 2002 mostly foreigners bought ivory and and the number of licensed retail outlets thus took the items with them when they from 31 to 145 in China during this period left the country. Today, nearly all ivory (IFAW 2006). remains in China. Mammoth ivory items, however, which were available in small Since 2002, the number of retail outlets amounts in China in 2002, have risen in selling ivory in Beijing has risen 2.5 times demand and are often exported by Chinese and in Shanghai 3.5 times. Since 2002 in and also foreigners as it is legal to do so. Beijing the number of ivory items seen for Lucy Vigne This ivory decorative sword and painted tusk were for sale in a Friendship Store in Shanghai for Chinese buyers and not for export as the vendors told us.

76 n china faces a conservation challenge Trends in the ivory trade in Beijing from 2002 to 2014

There have been considerable changes in Ivory items have risen hugely in price (Table the ivory trade in Beijing since 2002, the 14). For jewellery, chopsticks and cigarette date of the last detailed survey (Martin and holders (over half the items surveyed in Stiles 2003). One of the biggest differences Beijing in 2002) retail prices from 2002 had is the large increase in the price of tusks and gone up 7.7 times in US dollars compared ivory items due to rising demand. Several with Guangzhou in 2011. In Beijing from factory managers want to carve more ivory 2002 to 2014 retail prices have sky rocketed in Beijing today and complained to us about 13.5 times (Martin and Stiles 2002; Martin the shortage of tusks as the government and Vigne 2011a). For example, a bangle 2.5 allocated only five tonnes in total to all 37 cm wide increased on average retail from ivory factories in China. USD 112 to USD 1,933; necklaces made from small beads from USD 24–67 to an average In 2002 there were 61 retail outlets with ivory of USD 233; cigarette holders from USD in Beijing with 3,196 ivory objects (Martin 43 to USD 623; and personal name seals and Stiles 2003); we now surveyed 156 such from USD 85–122 to USD 790 (Martin and outlets with 6,272 elephant ivory objects. Stiles 2003). If one compares these 2014 In 2002 there was an average of 52 items retail prices with similar items in Africa, say counted per outlet. In 2014 there were 40 per Angola, for 2014 there is a huge difference. outlet: 8 items per unlicensed outlet and 151 In the Benfica market in Luanda, bangles of items per licensed outlet; legal outlets carry size similar to those in Beijing retailed for 3.5 times more items than in 2002. USD 100, necklaces USD 30, chopsticks USD Lucy Vigne Increasing numbers of Chinese tourists visit Beijing and sometimes shop for ivory items.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 77 87, and name seals USD 60. These Angolan 43 outlets with, according to the vendors, prices average out at a 12th of the cost of 3,747 mammoth ivory items (87 items on similar items in Beijing (Martin and Vigne average per outlet). 2014a). No wonder that the Chinese are the main buyers of worked ivory items in the With recent growing demand by the Chinese major illegal markets in Africa. for ivory, the legal import of 62 tonnes of tusks in 2009, the increased quantity of illegal The carving and sales of mammoth ivory tusks and worked ivory items smuggled in have increased to substantial amounts from Africa, and the strong expansion of the today. Stiles found not a single mammoth Chinese economy, the Beijing ivory industry ivory item in Beijing in 2002, but we found has greatly expanded since 2002. Trends in the ivory trade in Shanghai from 2002 to 2014

In Shanghai in 2002, 35 outlets were openly 720 and pendants from USD 72 to USD 714; selling 2,045 elephant ivory items compared this is an eightfold rise in price over 12 years. with the 2014 survey of 119 outlets openly selling 2,172. Thus the number of outlets has One of the most significant changes in the risen sharply while the number of items for mammoth ivory trade in Shanghai has been sale has remained similar. The number of the huge increase in the number of items for items per shop has declined overall from 68 in sale. In 2002 there were only three outlets 2002 to 18 in 2014. We counted an average of selling 292 items on display compared with 105 items in the licensed outlets and 9 in the 2014 when 20 outlets had 3,547 pieces (177 unlicensed outlets in 2014, thus the number items per outlet), although some of these of items in legal outlets has about doubled items were in fact elephant ivory. in 2014 compared with 2002. In 2002 a Friendship Store had the most ivory items for sale in Shanghai: 1,159; in 2014 it was licensed with 118 items. In 2002 the regulations on the sales of ivory items were less rigorous without identification cards needed, but by 2004 outlets had to be licensed with Collection cards to sell ivory items.

Retail prices for most ivory items, as in Beijing, increased substantially from 2002 to 2014 (Table 15). For example, chopsticks rose on average from USD 131 in 2002 to USD 629, cigarette holders rose from USD 25 to USD 749, beaded necklaces from USD 111 to USD Lucy Vigne This photograph shows the old Yu Gardens in front of the new cityscape of Shanghai.

78 n china faces a conservation challenge OVERALL DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

The ivory industry in Beijing and Shanghai had plummeted by the early 2000s due to the 1990 international CITES ban that caused a reduction in the import of tusks and caused foreigners, then the main buyers in China, to stop buying ivory items. Today, with a steady increase in the number of wealthy Chinese, the industry has been expanding once again, with the Chinese buying over 90% of elephant ivory items and over 80% of mammoth ivory items. Although only a fraction of the population is interested in buying ivory, in a country of 1.3 billion people that number is still sizeable, and the government supports ivory carving as an important part of Chinese culture.

Discrepancies occur in the legal domestic Mammoth ivory was not available in the ivory trade. The licensed factory and early 2000s in the shops in Beijing, and licensed outlet system, with its impressive- very little was for sale in Shanghai. The looking Collection cards, designed to identify industry has today expanded considerably, each legally carved item on display for retail with large quantities of mammoth ivory sale, is being abused in some outlets in both for carving being imported from Russia cities. Customers do not always take the via Hong Kong into China legally by private card after buying an ivory item. This allows businesspeople. But some traders are ivory items from illegal sources of ivory to be selling mammoth ivory items as a disguise reproduced using the same Collection card. for elephant ivory in their retail outlets. Lucy Vigne Some elaborate ivory items such as this one may remain in an outlet for a long time as they are so expensive and nowadays cannot be exported legally as the brochure states.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 79 Lucy Vigne This polished tusk was seen on a licensed shop floor, about to be dispatched in its box to a customer.

Although the number of elephant ivory the scenes among friends and associates, items counted was not high compared in both raw and worked form. Some with those in cities in some countries, the businesspeople have been buying ivory as average size of the pieces per outlet was an investment, believing the supply of ivory considerably larger, including several whole will decrease with growing restrictions and elephant tusks for sale in most retail outlets. possible future large destructions of global Businesspeople and collectors increasingly ivory stockpiles, while demand will rise. seek plain polished tusks as an investment. Overall, however, few customers were China faces enormous challenges in law buying ivory objects in the shops during our enforcement to control the ivory trade, month-long survey. We saw just a handful as the number of rich businesspeople of sales, which does not explain how the in the country with interest in buying large amount of smuggled ivory from Africa ivory continues to increase. Ever-growing coming into China today is being consumed. numbers of Chinese contract workers are going to Africa and buying increasing Worldwide seizure data and fieldwork on quantities of illegal ivory to smuggle into ivory markets in Africa and Asia indicate that China. While there are illegal sales of ivory much greater quantities of ivory are being in the retail outlets, ivory selling outside traded in China than are being accounted these outlets is an even bigger challenge for as they are not going into the licensed for law enforcement. China has the capacity retail outlets. The amount of ivory items on to reduce elephant poaching by cutting open display in the retail outlets in China, down demand for ivory in the country, whether licensed or unlicensed, is just the tackling ivory smuggling from Africa to tip of the iceberg compared with sales of China, combating the sale of illegal ivory illegal ivory occurring elsewhere in the both in retail outlets and through the social country. Most sales of illegal ivory appear network. This can only be done with a huge to be being conducted secretly behind upsurge in political will.

80 n china faces a conservation challenge ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank Save the Elephants and The Aspinall Foundation for funding our fieldwork in China. Thanks go to Alex Hofford for helping us collect mammoth ivory official statistics. We are also most grateful to Yufang Gao and Dan Stiles for sharing information and commenting on the manuscript. Lucy Vigne Whole large mammoth tusks are easily distinguishable by their shape; this one was outside a licensed outlet for elephant ivory in one of the Shanghai Friendship Stores.

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 81 REFERENCES

CITES. 2012. Control of trade in ivory in China. Martin E, Vigne L. 2014b. Findings on the CITES 62nd meeting of the Standing Committee, flourishing ivory trade in Angola’s capital, SC 62 Inf. 8, Geneva, 23–27 July. Luanda. TRAFFIC Bulletin 26(2):4–6.

[EIA] Environmental Investigation Agency. 2002. Milliken T. 2013. Progress in implementing Lethal experiment. EIA, London. the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS). Pachyderm 54:85–90. [EIA] Environmental Investigation Agency. 2003. Back in business. EIA, London. Nijman V, Shepherd R. 2014. Social media and the ivory ban: Myanmar and China cross-border [EIA] Environmental Investigation Agency. 2014. trade. Pachyderm 55:97–99. Vanishing point: criminality, corruption and the devastation of Tanzania’s elephants. EIA, London. O’Connell-Rodwell C, Parry-Jones R. 2002. An assessment of China’s management of trade Gao Y, Clark S. 2014. Elephant ivory trade in in elephants and elephant products. TRAFFIC China: trends and drivers. Biological Conservation International, Cambridge, UK. 180:23–30. St Aubyn F, ed. 1987. Ivory: an international Global Times. 2014. Discipline watchdog to hold history and illustrated survey. Harry Abrams, New auction in Wenzhou. Global Times 6, 1414, 6 May. York.

Hong Kong Government. 2008–2014. Hong TRAFFIC and China Arts and Crafts Association. Kong annual digest of statistics, various years. 2007. Survey report on ivory trade in China. General Statistics Section, Census and Statistics Unpublished. Department, Hong Kong. Trew B. 2014. Egypt’s ivory sellers thrive as [IFAW] International Fund for Animal Welfare. police turn a blind eye. The Times, 10 October. 2006. Ivory market in China: China ivory trade survey report. IFAW, USA. ’t Sas-Rolfes M. Moyle B, Stiles D. 2014. The complex policy issue of elephant ivory stockpile Laurie A. 1989. The ivory trade in China. In: management. Pachyderm 56:62–77. The ivory trade and the future of the African elephant, ed. Cobb S. Ivory Trade Review Group, UNEP, CITES, IUCN, TRAFFIC. 2013. Elephants Oxford. Unpublished. in the dust: the African elephant crisis. A rapid response assessment. United Nations Martin E. 1988. China’s ivory carving industry. Environment Programme. Arendal, Norway. TRAFFIC Bulletin 10(1/2):4–7. Vigne L. 2013a. Recent findings on the ivory and Martin E. 1990. Ivory billiard balls. BBC Wildlife rhino-horn trade in Lao People’s Democratic 8(9):622–623. Republic. Pachyderm 54:36–44.

Martin E, Martin C. 2010. Russia’s mammoth Vigne L. 2013b. Lao traders threaten Africa’s ivory industry expands: what effect on elephants and rhinos. Swara 37(4):38–46. elephants? Pachyderm 47:26–35. Vigne L. Martin E. 2010. Consumer demand for Martin E, Stiles D. 2003. The ivory markets of East ivory in Japan declines. Pachyderm 47:36–44. Asia. Save the Elephants, Nairobi and London. Vira V, Ewing T, Miller J. 2014. Out of Africa: Martin E, Vigne L. 2011a. The ivory dynasty: a mapping the global trade in illicit elephant ivory. report on the soaring demand for elephant and Born Free, Washington, DC. mammoth ivory in southern China. Elephant Family, The Aspinall Foundation and Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, London.

Martin E, Vigne L. 2011b. Illegal ivory sales in Egypt. TRAFFIC Bulletin 23(3):117–122.

Martin E, Vigne L. 2013. Lagos, Nigeria: one of the largest retail centres for illegal ivory surveyed to date. TRAFFIC Bulletin 25(1):35–40.

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82 n china faces a conservation challenge TABLES

Table 1. Imports of mammoth tusks in kilos into Hong Kong, 2007 to 2013 (7 years) Year From Russia to Hong Kong From all countries to Hong Kong 2007 45,120 46,230 2008 26,370 27,088 2009 20,363 21,587 2010 36,665 42,198 2011 36,701 38,709 2012 55,095 57,448 2013 35,147 41,023 Total 256,461 274,283 Average per year 36,637 39,183 Source: Hong Kong government, 2008–2014

Table 2. Re-exports of mammoth tusks (kg) from Hong Kong to mainland China, 2007 to 2013 (7 years) Year From Hong Kong to mainland China From Hong Kong to all countries 2007 29,891 31,829 2008 31,271 32,323 2009 14,242 14,457 2010 32,947 33,285 2011 41,557 41,698 2012 28,101 28,764 2013 33,194 34,517 Total 211,203 274,283 Average per year 30,171 30,982 Source: Hong Kong government, 2008–2014

Table 3. Estimate of the number of ivory carvers and weight of ivory consumed by the Beijing Ivory Carving Factory from 1976 to 2014 No. of ivory Ivory consumed Year Reference carvers (tonnes) 1976 — 15 Martin 1988 1977/8 — 15 Pers. comm.1 Early 1980s — 10 Laurie 1989 1985 421 – 550 15 Pers. comm.1, Martin 1988 1987 200 7 Pers. comm.1 1988 — 9 Martin 1990 1989 300 – 400 4 Laurie 1989, Martin 1990 1990 6 — Martin 1990 2000 ‘a few old carvers’ — EIA 2002 2001 ‘under 10’ — O’Connell–Rodwell and Parry–Jones 2002 2002 0 0 Martin and Stiles 2003, EIA 2003 2013 — 0.6 Pers. comm.2 2013 40 0.5 Pers. comm.3

1 Liu Jie Ding, Manager, Beijing Ivory Factory (BICF) to E Martin, 14 December 1987 2 Kirsten Conrad to E Martin and L Vigne, 22 August 2014 3 Sales Manager, BICF to E Martin and L Vigne, 14 May 2014

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 83 Table 4. Number of retail outlets seen with so–named elephant ivory and mammoth ivory items openly for sale in Beijing and Shanghai in early 2002 and in April/May 2014 Number of outlets Number of items Av. number of items Year/City Elephant Mammoth Elephant Mammoth Elephant Mammoth 2002 Beijing 61 0 3,196 0 52 0 Shanghai 35 3 2,045 292 68 97 2014 Beijing 156 43 6,272 3,747 40 87 Shanghai 119 20 2,172 3,547 10 177

Source: for 2002 data: Martin and Stiles 2003 Some outlets incorrectly named several of their items to us as mammoth ivory when they were actually elephant ivory.

Table 5. Elephant ivory items for retail sale seen in Beijing in May 2014 Item Percentage of total Pendant 31 Figurine/figure 17 Charm/toggle 7 Button 6 Necklace 5 Bracelet 5 Bangle 5 Name seal, personal 4 Whole worked tusk 3 Cigarette holder 2 Chopsticks, pair 2 Netsuke 2 Miscellaneous 11 Total 100

Table 6. Mammoth ivory items seen for retail sale in Beijing in May 2014 Item Percentage of total Pendant 38 Figurine/figure 28 Charm/toggle 13 Netsuke 5 Necklace 4 Bracelet 3 Earring, pair 2 Ring 2 Miscellaneous 5 Total 100

84 n china faces a conservation challenge Table 7. Retail prices for elephant ivory items seen in Beijing in May 2014 Item Size (cm) Price range (USD) Av. price (USD) JEWELLERY Bangle 1 – 2.5 492 – 5,125 1,933 Bracelet, beaded 1 – 2 393 – 1,066 803 Necklace, beaded 0.5 – 1 525 – 1,131 836 Pendant 4 – 5 164 – 1,443 757 Ring, plain — 82 – 85 84 FIGURINE/FIGURE Animal/human/religious 5 361 361 10 – 20 4,918 – 26,000 9,660 25 – 30 14,754 – 19,672 17,486 TUSK Carved 30 – 50 14,754 – 66,885 22,295 60 – 80 79,344 – 295,081 138,360 90 – 100 95,082 – 161,639 128,361 Polished 30 – 50 24,918 – 32,787 28,852 60 – 80 29,508 29,508 90 – 100 24,590 – 59,016 41,803 MISCELLANEOUS Chopsticks, pair 20 410 – 1,377 746 Cigarette holder 10 – 15 492 – 803 623 Name seal, personal 2 x 6 246 – 1,148 790

USD 1 = 6.1 yuan

Table 8. Retail prices for mammoth ivory items seen in Beijing in May 2014 Item Size (cm) Price range (USD) Av. price (USD) JEWELLERY Bangle 1 – 2.5 508 – 1,230 869 Earrings, pair 2 – 3 144 – 377 235 Necklace, beaded 0.5 – 1 — — Pendant 4 – 5 213 – 1,197 667 FIGURINE/FIGURE Animal/human/religious 5 148 – 1,607 676 10 – 20 8,196 – 24,590 13,661 25 – 30 6,721 – 32,787 19,118 TUSK Carved 30 – 50 6,393 – 6,557 6,475 60 – 80 12,295 12,295 90 – 100 95,082 95,082 Polished 30 – 50 9,836 9,836 60 – 80 37,705 – 78,689 58,117 90 – 100 — — MISCELLANEOUS Cigarette holder 10 – 15 — — Name seal, personal 2 x 6 — —

These prices are for items that vendors called mammoth, even if some were in reality elephant ivory. USD 1 = 6.1 yuan

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 85 Table 9. Elephant ivory items for retail sale seen in Shanghai in April/May 2014 Item Percentage of total Pendant 19 Figurine/figure 15 Name seal, personal 11 Beaded necklace 6 Charm/toggle 5 Bangle 5 Bracelet 4 Whole worked tusk 3 Cigarette holder 3 Chopsticks, pair 2 Netsuke 2 Paintbrush holder 2 Magic ball 2 Container 2 Miscellaneous 19 Total 100

Table 10. Mammoth ivory items seen for retail sale in Shanghai in April/May 2014 Item Percentage of total Figurine/figure 36 Pendant 32 Charm/toggle 13 Netsuke 5 Toothpick 3 Bracelet 2 Necklace 2 Bangle 2 Whole worked tusk 2 Miscellaneous 3 Total 100

Table 11. Retail prices (USD) for elephant and mammoth ivory items in Shanghai in April/ May 2014 Item Elephant ivory Mammoth ivory Bangle 971 638 Bracelet 898 829 Cigarette holder 749 180 Necklace, medium beads 720 628 Pendant 715 318 Ring 97 86

USD 1 = 6.1 yuan

86 n china faces a conservation challenge Table 12. Retail prices for elephant ivory items seen in Shanghai in April/May 2014 Item Size (cm) Price range (USD) Av. price (USD) JEWELLERY Bangle 1 – 2.5 210 – 2,592 971 Necklace, beaded 0.5 – 1 197 – 1,508 720 Pendant 4 – 5 125 – 1,967 715 Ring, plain — 62 – 131 97 FIGURINE/FIGURE Animal/human/religious 5 289 – 2,377 937 10 – 20 4,098 – 26,639 12,345 25 – 30 3,246 – 21,311 10,251 TUSK Carved 30 – 50 14,754 – 64,918 26,432 60 – 80 45,574 45,574 90 – 100 80,492 – 204,919 138,033 Polished 30 – 50 16,721 – 32,781 27,131 60 – 80 34,425 – 45,902 40,164 90 – 100 209,836 209,836 MISCELLANEOUS Chopsticks, pair 20 246 – 967 629 Cigarette holder 10 – 15 189 – 1,148 749 Name seal, personal 2 x 6 210 – 1,311 703

USD 1 = 6.1 yuan

Table 13. Retail prices for mammoth ivory items seen in Shanghai in April/May 2014 Item Size (cm) Price range (USD) Av. price (USD) JEWELLERY Bangle 1 – 2.5 328 – 984 638 Necklace, beaded 0.5 – 1 111 – 1,443 628 Pendant 4 – 5 52 – 574 318 Ring, plain — 25 – 148 86 FIGURINE/FIGURE Animal/human/religious 5 143 – 573 291 10 – 20 377 – 2,459 1,213 25 – 30 2,754 – 32,786 9,188 TUSK Carved 30 – 50 5,738 – 26,229 13,999 60 – 80 — — 90 – 100 39,344 – 459,016 118,853 MISCELLANEOUS Cigarette holder 10 – 15 115 – 295 180 Name seal, personal 2 x 6 377 – 426 402

These prices are for items that vendors called mammoth, even if some were in reality elephant ivory. USD 1 = 6.1 yuan

the expanding elephant and mammoth ivory trade in beijing and shanghai n 87 Table 14. Retail price comparisons (USD) for elephant ivory items in Beijing in 2002, in Guangzhou in 2011 and in Beijing in May 2014 Item 2002 2011 2014 Chopsticks, pair 84 455 536 Cigarette holder 43 296 623 Necklace, medium, beaded 45 441 836 Pendant, 3 cm 13 66 757

Source: for 2002 data: Martin and Stiles 2003; for 2011 data: Martin and Vigne 2011

Table 15. Retail price comparisons (USD) for elephant ivory items in Shanghai in 1985, 2002 and April/May 2014 Item 1985 2002 2014 Chopsticks, pair 21 131 629 Cigarette holder 17 25 749 Necklace, medium, beaded 48 111 720 Pendant, 3 cm 8 72 714

Source: for 1985 data: pers comm. Mr Da, December 1985; for 2002 data: Martin and Stiles 2003

88 n china faces a conservation challenge Lucy Vigne Lucy Vigne was born in Cape Town and brought and consumer of rhino horn for making up and educated in England. She holds an MA dagger handles, advising officials on law in Zoology from Oxford University. She has enforcement against the rhino horn trade lived in Kenya since 1983, when she worked as and encouraging the use of substitutes. the first Executive Officer for the IUCN African She has carried out fieldwork in India and Elephant and Rhino Specialist Group. At that Nepal, concentrating on rhino conservation. time she was the first editor of the journal She studied India’s ivory trade just before Pachyderm. She compiled data on the numbers the CITES ivory ban in 1990. She produced a and distribution of elephants and rhinos series of monographs on the ivory markets in throughout Africa when both pachyderms Africa, Europe, USA, South East Asia and East were being heavily poached, and when Asia for Save the Elephants and Care for the information was desperately needed. In 1985 Wild International, based on fieldwork carried until the early 1990s she was the coordinator out by Esmond Martin and Daniel Stiles from of a WWF International project on the trade 1999 to 2008. She has carried out ivory trade in rhino products, and in 1992/3 she worked studies in Africa and Asia, often with Esmond at UNEP in Nairobi with Esmond Martin when Martin, working recently in Angola, Egypt, he was Special Envoy for the rhinoceros. She Ethiopia, Nigeria, as well as China, Hong has carried out fieldwork in Africa and Asia, Kong, Lao PDR and Thailand. She is currently surveying both the ivory and the rhino horn on the board of Friends of Nairobi National .trade Park, one of Kenya’s prime rhino breeding areas, and continues on the editorial board Lucy Vigne has visited Yemen many times, .of Pachyderm especially when it was the major importer Esmond Martin Esmond Martin holds a PhD in Geography higher priority on conserving the rhino. From from the University of Liverpool. In the 1970s 1999 to 2008 he and his co-author, Dan Stiles, he carried out research in and around the carried out fieldwork for five monographs Indian Ocean on the illegal trade in gold, on the world’s ivory markets. Recently, he people, alcohol, cloves, rhino horn and has continued his surveys of the illegal ivory elephant ivory. The results were published in trade, sometimes with Lucy Vigne, in Angola, two books, Cargoes of the East (co-authored Egypt, Nigeria and Sudan, each of which with his wife, Chryssee) and Zanzibar: Tradition has large amounts of illegal ivory openly for and Revolution. In 1979 WWF and IUCN hired sale. He has been visiting China since 1985, him to carry out the first detailed investigation examining the retail markets selling elephant of the contemporary trade in rhino products .and mammoth ivories in Asia. Further investigations followed in the mid-1980s on the ivory carving industries of Esmond Martin has had published over 150 Africa. Immediately after the CITES ban on the articles on the wildlife trade and several trade in ivory in 1990, he analysed the effects books; he has contributed to many wildlife on the price of ivory by carrying out field work television documentaries and television in many countries in Africa and Asia. In 1992 programmes. He has received a number of he was appointed by the United Nations to awards, including the Order of the Golden Ark be Special Envoy for the Rhinoceros, which for his work in rhino conservation, bestowed permitted him to contact Heads of State and .by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands other senior officials in Africa and Asia to put a ๸သࠥ ⦄ Port Lympne Reserve PO Box 54667 Lympne, Nr Hythe Nairobi 00200, Kenya Kent CT21 4PD, UK